Moving Day Fiasco! + The Real Story Behind My Health Scare.

Dive into an episode filled with chaos and heart: I recount the trials of my moving day and reveal the truth about my health scare last year. It’s a raw, real-life story about overcoming unexpected hurdles. Want to check out my new home? Watch that here: https://youtu.be/VbR_yUwuUBE

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#MovingChaos #HealthScareStory #LifeUpdates

I have a problem. I have entirely too much stuff. It’s bad. Oh, do I have a story for you! They were holding our belongings hostage. My heart rate had skyrocketed. It was very, very scary. That was in the middle of the night. I was

Telling the nurse to tell my family that I loved them. I thought, this is it. I’m dying right now. It is absolute chaos right now. Tomorrow we’re moving. As you can see behind me, we’ve got some packing done, but there is so much still to do.

So that’s what we’re going to be doing today. But I thought that it would also be fun to kind of do a ask me anything while we’re packing here and getting ready to do this big old move that I put out a call to see if you guys had any questions for me,

And I’m going to go through some of those today while we’re packing and moving and all of that craziness. So let’s get started. What a mess. Hey Dollee, what do you think of all this? Is it so crazy what’s going on?

We’ve moved a lot and I wish I had some grand tips for you, but at this point we are kind of late to the game, so everything just needs to get in a box and we’ll deal with it on the other side. So everything goes in a box.

Is just the worst, isn’t it? But everything needs to go in a box. Is anybody else moving right now? Do you have sympathy on me? I have too much stuff. It’s just the worst. I don’t consider myself a hoarder, but now that I’m moving, I kind of feel like one.

This is just all bunch of craft supplies for you guys. So I have some people who want to know if I know the design style that I’m going to be taking the new house in and I keep going back and forth,

I’m actually going to probably dedicate a whole video to go through the punch list of all of my hopes and dreams and room by room. Let me know in the comment section below if that is something that you would be interested in. Alright, Some of you asked what got me started in YouTube.

I just felt this overwhelming, I don’t know call it inspiration or nudge to share with people the projects that I was doing and hopefully inspire them to get courageous in their own projects and do the things that they want to do that they’ve maybe been putting off.

I figure if somebody like me can get out there and use power tools than anybody can. I really wanted to take people along on the journey, hopefully give them a little bit of courage and be their cheerleader. And that is what got me started.

In YouTube. So there you go. All right. Pack, pack, pack! Pack we must. So I am realizing I have a problem. I have entirely too much stuff. It’s bad. I’m here to get even more boxes. I have got to do a massive purge and this is me putting it out

There, so you’ll all hold me accountable and ask me. So NataLee, how is your massive purge coming along? I don’t need this much stuff. I don’t. This is ridiculous, and I can hopefully do some good with the stuff that I have donate it to good causes. It’s bad. So bad.

I don’t need this much stuff. Sorry honey. All right. It’s been a long day. We’ve got a lot done except for I didn’t answer a lot of questions. I will try to do better tomorrow, but before the end of the episode, I promise I will get to as many as I possibly can.

We decided to push the move out one day just because we have so much to do, still isn’t moving, just the worst? It is just the worst and I’m going to be so grateful when we are in our new home. You’ll be awesome.

So we’re about to move into our new home and I’m coming over to see what NataLee’s doing and I find her doing this. Hi honey! What are you doing? I’m. Putting in a new electrical outlet because we need a place to plug in our freezer.

You are so amazing. I can’t believe it. Thank you honey. I’m coming over here. My wife is doing electrical work on our home. It’s nuts. I love her. Alright. Oh my word. That smells amazing. So I have not done a very good job about filming today.

I have just basically been trying to get things done and been in survival mode. This morning I went and put in an electrical outlet in one of our closets. That’s where we’re going to put our deep freezer. And then I also really wanted to get up our fan or fandelier in our

Master bedroom because it be so much more difficult once the bed is in. And so I’m really glad that I got that done. Right now we are going to go ahead and pack up my China hutch and dining room area,

But before I did that I wanted to answer one of your questions and then I know that there’s a lot of questions about my health. I’ll get to that. This episode, it’s just going to take a minute and I want to be able to sit down and kind of

Just go things over. It’s a little bit complicated. So in the meantime, I’m going to answer right now. You had asked me who are some of my other favorite DIYers that I like to follow and obviously I like to follow my friend Lisa Burningham.

She is here on YouTube. I like to follow XO, Macenna and Lone Fox. There’s so many talented YouTubers out there that I follow a ton over on Instagram. I also follow several. I really love frills and drills. Angela Rose, Remington Avenue, Mallory Nikolaus.

So there’s a lot of very talented people out there that I really do like to consume DIY content. I try not to watch too much YouTube only because I don’t want it to influence the way I do my own content,

But I do try to know what’s going on out there. So enough about that. Let’s start packing the China hutch. So here we go. I need a box. First things first, moving is just the worst. I’m telling you I have way too much stuff.

I definitely need to purge and get rid of a whole bunch of stuff on the other end. I had the best of intentions to do that beforehand. Just did not work out that way. It’s moving day. We got a lot to do,

But we did hire some help because it’s Christmas time and my husband has a bad back. So let me go show you what’s going on. It looks pretty chaotic right now. We’ve got a few things that we still got to throw in some boxes. Look at this.

This is crazy. We’re all friends. Now if I’m showing you this chaos, got this, this is all in my craft room. The table is taken apart, just mayhem. Do you think we’re going to get this all out of here by the end of the day? I don’t know.

So here we’ve got this such chaos is moving. Always such a mess. I feel like it is. Wish me luck. Oh, I’m going crazy. Look at all that. That’s a lot of stuff and maybe a quarter of the house, third of the house. It’s late. We’re still going. Oh dear,

We’re going to get it done. Sorry I haven’t recorded very good, but the Q&A’s coming, but probably not till we are settled. I hate moving. Good thing this is our forever home. I’m never doing this again. (Sigh) I don’t have words. I don’t ever want to move again.

Good thing this is our forever home because that was just brutal. I didn’t film nearly as much as I had planned to or intended to. I was in survival mode. And then, oh, do I have a story for you?

So we hired a moving company to help us with the move and then we got an estimate and then when it was time to unload to our new house, first of all, it took a long time for them to get the first load loaded up and we knew we needed help.

So we rallied the troops from our church. They came to the rescue, a ton of them in this busy time of year to help unload our truck. Well, they arrived and then we got the actual bill. They wanted us to pay them prior to unloading the truck and

They went from what their estimate was to three times as much. I don’t even know I was beside myself. To make matters worse, they had said it was okay to pay them via Venmo. Like when I had talked to and communicated with them prior to the move

And they changed their mind and they only wanted cash. It was 4:45 (pm). We don’t live very close to a bank. We have all of these people waiting there to help us unload. It was like they were holding our belongings hostage. It was just a terrible experience.

Fortunately we did happen to have the cash on hand, but that’s abnormal. It was just a mess. My church people really came to the rescue. It was just like, I don’t know, a Christmas miracle. Everything did get unloaded. We’re a little bit poorer, but I’m just grateful to be in this house.

So that was just not a pleasant experience. You hear about people whose items get held hostage by moving companies. You don’t ever think it’s going to happen to you. It happened to us. It was not fun. Anyways, now to the Q&A portion of this video,

And I am sitting in basically the only area that’s somewhat peaceful and even saying that I’ve got behind the camera, I’ve got several boxes and things strewn. We don’t have everything set up. This looks good. I’m grateful to be in and I’m so excited to just make this our forever home. Okay,

So then probably the most asked question for this year is really what happened to me last year? This time? What was my health problems? And it’s been something that I’ve been a little hesitant to fully come forth and talk about. Well, first of all, there was many things wrong with me.

It wasn’t necessarily a singular event. There I think was one primary issue that really caused a hot mess of other problems. But this time last year, I was literally in the hospital for a couple of days. I think a year ago today I was in the hospital.

It was almost Christmas and then when I got out of the hospital, I was completely bedridden. My daughter came and she took care of me for several days. Then my parents came and they took care of me for several days. My family,

My husband and two boys took care of me most of the time and it was just a really humbling experience. A lot of, again, church people and friends. I couldn’t drive for about six weeks, so I relied heavily on Lisa and other people to get me to doctor’s

Appointments and it was really, really bad. And so what initially happened is I was live streaming on Amazon and I think I was doing my coconut cream pie, but at the very end of the live stream I was kind of starting to wrap things up. This was about Thanksgiving time.

I went kind of black for just a second, but thankfully I was leaning up against the stove, so it braced me and all of a, I completely blacked out for, I don’t even know it, just a few seconds. It kind of looks like I’m just staring at the screen at this point.

And I totally came to and I was so confused. I didn’t know what had happened where I was. Then I saw the camera in front of me and realized, oh my gosh, I’m live streaming. And it happened really, really fast, but I was completely disoriented and it was really, really scary to me.

And so I quickly wrapped up the livestream and then my husband immediately took me to the emergency room. We didn’t know what was going on many, many years ago. I had a TIA, which if you know is a mini stroke and because I have a

Heart issue that’s been since repaired many, many years ago, I had a minor heart surgery when I was in my mid twenties and it kind of felt like that. I mean, it was just really, really weird neurological symptoms. He took me to the emergency room.

They could not figure out what was wrong with me. They’re like, there’s a few things that look a little bit off, but nothing that could explain what you’re going through. So this was the beginning of a many months process of trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with me.

So this kind of all occurred just a couple of days after opening and unboxing all of the packages that were sent to me to do the Christmas tree. And I don’t know if it’s just a weird coincidence or what happened, but fast forward a few, several months later,

I found out that I had heavy metal toxicity and I was kind of off the chart and mercury lead, arsenic, the whole gamut. When I was talking to the doctor, they said, usually when you have some kind of heavy metal poisoning, it’s like one thing. But this was broad spectrum. So

Looking back then it kind of explains a lot of the other things that were going on. So heavy metal poisoning, really scary. So when I was actually in the hospital this time last year, they sent me through an MRI because they were trying to figure out what was

Going on with all of these weird neurological symptoms that I was having. I was very dizzy. I was having doubled and blurry vision and just crazy, crazy symptoms. I was very nauseated. I felt like I was dying. I mean that sounds a little ;melodramatic,

But I literally thought like I’m dying and they can’t figure out what’s wrong with me. Even saying that out loud, it seems dramatic, but that’s how truly sick I was. I remember after the MRI, things got really, really bad and my heart rate spiked. The monitors started going off like crazy.

There was a whole host of nurses and doctors in there giving me medication because my heart rate had skyrocketed. It was very, very scary. That was in the middle of the night. I was sorry I didn’t expect to get emotional, but I was telling the nurse to tell my family that I loved.

Them. Because I thought, this is it. I’m dying right now. Sorry. Okay, sorry. And this was all at Christmas time last year. So that’s why it was so important for me to try to get Christmas together this year ahead of the move because we’ve got this other major life event

Moving into this house at Christmas time. I don’t know what it is about Christmas time. Anyways, sorry, hope I can pull this together. So I didn’t die obviously, but it was a really long process getting better. I had every test under the sun done and the traditional medical

Community wasn’t finding any answers for me. My blood sugars were way off. They were either really low or they’d spike really high. So they tested me for diabetes. They literally tested me for almost everything. And then that took me to see a holistic doctor because I’m like,

I don’t know what else to do because I have never felt so sick in my life. I’m unable to really get out of bed. I’m unable to drive my car. I’m unable to function, and I just felt within my soul going to see a holistic

Doctor was the way to go, and his name is Dr. Murphy here in Florida. He doesn’t know I’m going to give him a shout out, but after going to see him, things just totally changed. He got all the answers that I was looking for.

He’s the one who found out that I was totally heavy metal toxic. So he sent me through a heavy metal cleanse that was not fun at all to do. He explained it to me. It’s like kicking a beehive.

It’s going to flare up every issue as it’s trying to purge it out of your body. I also had what’s called sibo, which is a totally inflammation of the gut and bacterial overgrowth. I had to go on a special diet for that. I was deficient in so many vitamins and minerals.

So I honestly was just a complete and utter hot mess when it came to my health. So little by little, I totally changed my diet. I needed to get the inflammation out of my body. I stopped eating sugar, I stopped eating gluten. I really, really cut back on dairy. I really,

Really paid attention to what I was putting on my body and in my body. You guys, I really loved Cherry Coke Zero and I had put creamer in it. I was drinking like 36 to 48 ounces at the time. I got really, really sick. I gave that up completely.

I just had to do a complete 180. Now I’ve been cheating a little bit lately because of the move and everything that’s going on and I’m starting to feel it again. So I have totally course corrected in the past day or two. And now that we’re in,

It’s really hard to eat well and take good care of yourself when you are just in survival mode. But I’m back on because I truly feel better eating clean and this isn’t probably for another episode, I found ways to still feel like I’m getting a treat,

Eating completely clean things. I found Hu chocolate, which is sweetened only with dates and not refined sugar. So there’s things where I don’t feel like I’m being withheld and that may be a topic for another day because this is probably going to end up being longer than I intended.

The good news is I even with being bad this past five or six weeks as we’ve gone through this huge transition of buying a house, getting moving and starting some of these renovations, I feel so much better.

I feel tremendous and I know that if I stay the course that I’m going to be just fine. That’s enough about my health. If you have any other questions, maybe I can pepper it into upcoming episodes. I just know that there was a ton of questions. It was really sensitive topic for me.

So I have hesitated to even really address it. So moving on to some other questions. I get a lot of questions about my daughter, RyLee, particularly with this new move. They’re like, where’s your daughter’s bedroom? So she is actually college aged and she does not live with us.

She lives actually out west. So when she comes and stays, she will stay in the guest room and she will have priority on that. And so she is always welcome and she does have a place to stay when she visits. She just doesn’t live with us full time.

Another question that I get asked a lot is when I say we a lot, I say when I’m shooting and filming episodes, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that, and now we did this and now we did that. They’re like, who is we? Why do you say we so much?

Who is that? I only see you on camera. I only see you doing that. Do you have an assistant? Is there somebody helping you off camera? And what I can tell you is I am doing 99.9% of the stuff you see all on my own except for some of the recent projects.

I hired help and I’ve shown you and told you that on camera. But when I’m saying we, and it’s only me on camera, I’m referring as the proverbial “we”. So I just envision you right alongside me and we’re doing this project together and I am saying, we’re going to do this next.

We’re going to do this next. So we is you and I know that that confuses people sometimes, but I really do feel like you’re a part of this with me, and so I want you to feel a part of it. Hopefully that clears that up.

So I got a lot of questions about my husband, what he does for a living, and so he’s working on something in his new room, so let’s go see what he is doing and let’s ask him. Hey honey, how are you doing? Good. Hey,

So my people want to know what you do for a living. So do you want to tell them what you have been doing and then maybe tell them what. Our plans are? Yeah, well first, honey, oh yeah. I got to show. This is my dream room. Yes it.

Is, right? So I have been wanting this for years and years, so this is going to be my golf simulator room. Yes, and it’s under construction. We’ve still got a lot to do. So this is where the screen’s going to go and this is where I’m going to have my

Buddies over and my sons will be able to hit balls from here. Here’s where I’m going to build all my stuff. I’m a tinkerer, I’m a club builder. But sorry, what was the question? What did you do for a living and what are your.

Plans? Oh, our big plans are, okay, so I’m in pharmaceuticals, been in pharmaceuticals since I graduated college in 2007 and have been doing that for a long time. I’ve been on the consulting side of that since 2018. But the crazy thing is is that NataLee and I have made the decision

For me to relent my career and help her with what we’re going to be doing with power tools and a whole bunch of other stuff. I’m not sure what all you’ve told them, but we have really big plans, so I’m going to be part of that story.

NataLee’s just doing such a wonderful job and I’m so proud of her. But really the beautiful story is that when you and I were first married, we’re like, listen, we’re going to do things old fashioned. And so NataLee stayed at home and is clearly the talent in the

Family and took care of our wonderful boys, and our boys are doing so well and now it’s NataLee’s time. So NataLee and I are going to try to build something together. So yes. I am lucky because I am not a business person and he is,

So he’s going to help me with the business side of things and we’re going to just team up and here we go. That’s the big news. I have half my friends saying, Greg, you’re crazy. Why did you leave something that you were doing so well in?

And then the other half are going, go for it, man, entrepreneurial spirit, let’s do this. But that’s what we’re doing. Kind of crazy. Timing too with find a house and doing this. We’re doing it all wrong. Don’t follow us. Okay, so another question I get asked is about my design

Background and experience if I’m trained for this or what the story is there. And so the shorter answer is no. I am mostly self-taught, but I think it’s a little bit more involved in that really. When I was younger, my mom had me get training in sewing and all

Of that. She gave me the private sewing lessons. She taught me to sew. So I had that background when I was a kid. I was constantly rearranging my room to change it up and I just loved it. I think I’ve always had a passion and a love

For interiors and beauty and that led me to going into real estate. And I think what I loved about real estate was that I loved people and I loved homes, and so I didn’t really love the selling aspect of it other

Than fulfilling people’s being a buyer’s agent and helping them out in this transaction. I did pretty well at the time in real estate and then I went back to college and my intent was to enroll in the interior design program at my university, but they actually had canceled that program.

So I decided to major in broadcast journalism, which is something I was also fascinated and loved at the time, and that’s what my actual degree is in. But while I was in college, they still had some of those interior design courses,

So I took as many as I could to learn some of the fundamental design principles. I took floral design, I went on to work in a floral shop. So I’m kind of mixing the timeline together because it is kind of mixed up a little bit. During this time in college,

I still held my real estate license. In fact, I still hold a real estate license. I’ve been licensed in three states. I’ve been licensed in Utah, Maine, and Florida. And I just have always carried a real estate license. It hasn’t always been active. I don’t actively sell.

It’s just something that we’ve done because we like to invest in real estate and that’s something that we have. We have five properties as of right now. To briefly touch on that, the way we’ve done it is because we haven’t come from money. We’ve just been very,

Very scrappy and we would get the minimum down payment we could at the time and we purchase a property, we’d live in it, fix it up, and then move out, rent it out. We’ve got some traditional rentals. We’ve also got some Airbnbs.

And so that’s just been the way we’ve been able to do it and it’s just really worked out well for us back to real estate and my design experience. So I started decorating some model homes for new builders,

But I had been working with many years ago. They asked if I could help them decorate their model homes and I said, yes, of course, because I loved that. And that led to the buyers of the homes asking if I could help them

Decorate their new homes that they purchased for me, which I loved and did. And then I realized that I had a real passion for decorating for people. So then I went to work for a design firm, which was a wonderful experience. I was able to design model homes, new construction parade of homes,

If you’re familiar with that and they have that in your area. I did many of those. I even did some commercial spaces, a mall interior, we did some updating there. I worked for this design firm for about three years and it was just such a rewarding career. I loved it.

And then we moved and then I took a little time off for my littles and I kept improving my DIY skills by just improving all the homes that we were moving in. And we did sell one property along the way,

And that allowed us to get the home that we currently have out in Maine on the coast. It’s such a beautiful home. There’s projects to do there as well. Then all of that experience from professional and all of that led me to get onto a reality show on HGTV.

I’ve touched on this a little bit in the past. It didn’t work out very good. I was pregnant at the time, didn’t realize it, so I got a little sick. I hate the competition aspect of that. It’s just not in me to get catty and you had to be

It. Just looking back, I don’t know if I would’ve gone on it. I don’t know. I kind of go back and forth of would I have done it or would I have just approached it differently? I don’t know. But what I kept feeling from this is I

Had this need and this urge to help all of you realize that you are capable of amazing things because you just have to get brave and bold, and that’s what I’m trying to share with all of you. I’m not necessarily trained in all of these things.

I learned to use power tools by just using them, maybe watching YouTube tutorials on how to use them, little by little lineup online, precept upon precept, all that comes together and I just got better and better with time and I’m still improving. I am not the best construction person.

I am not the best designer, but I’m evolving and you can too. So that’s what I’m really, really want to share with you. Okay, so I want to touch on the whole power tool thing. How that really came about is I listened to you. I would go

Out and use all these power tools and I got so many comments I hear, oh, I wish I could use that, but they’re too heavy or the grip’s too hard or they’re not made for me. And so I kept hearing this over and over and then I was personally experiencing

It and I was like, you know what? We have been totally forgotten in the power tool industry. And what is crazy is women account for 40% of all power tool purchases, 40%. But how many of those companies out there have a line for women?

I mean, you might be able to find a cheap, weak man drill that they’ve slapped pink on, but there is not a full fledged line of power tools for women. And I was like, you know what? It’s about time, isn’t it?

So I really dedicated a lot of time to designing this first tool. We’ve got more planned and more in the works for those of you who’ve already ordered and are waiting, they’re coming soon. I think they’re going to be shipping to our warehouse in mid-January.

And so as soon as they hit our warehouse, we will start shipping them out to people. And I am so excited about that. It’s something that I’m very, very proud of and I hope that it can motivate some of you out there to not only

Use power tools, but if you have a dream and you see a need, go out and seize the moment. I’m not the youngest person on the planet, but it’s never too late. You go after your dreams and you seize the moment you do it.

You will never regret going after your dreams, I promise. I also got a ton of questions about my design plans for this house, this new home that we just purchased. It’s our forever home. So it’s going to cause me to maybe approach things a little bit more intricate than usual.

I think I’m going to dedicate a whole video and go room by room by room and really articulate all of the plans that I have for each room, room by room. Is that something you’d like to see where I will kind of give an overall vision

For the house and then room by room point out specific projects that I hope to complete. I have so many ideas and there’s going to be so much content. And so I hope that you enjoy this new journey with me.

And if you hear me say we, it’s because I’m taking you along on the journey, like I said with me. So lots of surprises, lots of new stuff coming, and I’m always going to be trying to evolve to create better videos for you, things that you really enjoy.

So if there is something that you want to see that you would find value in or that something that you’ve seen that really draws you in, let me know in the comment section below because this is our journey together. Yes, I’m doing these things in my home,

But I also want to provide value for you. That is my absolute goal. I don’t want it to be a selfish journey. This is something that we’re doing together and I really hope that you feel a part of it. Another.

Question I’ve been getting asked quite a bit lately is how I could move away from my best friend Lisa Burningham, who has a channel here on YouTube and how far away I am from hers. So let’s just see. All right, we’re here. Hi neighbor.

Come on in together at last. So how far away are we? Let’s see. You have five houses, plus you’re on the other side of the street. So it takes us a solid 25 seconds to walk each other house, which is much better than two blocks, right? So we’re closer. We’re closer,

And now that we’re together, we can cause all kind of mischief in the neighborhood. Oh yes, we’re going to close. Watch out. There you go. So I hope that answers all of your questions. We’re together. So coming up in the new year, I am planning on first thing,

Kind of unboxing everything and decorating each room with stuff that I already have. So you’ll get to see that if you like that kind of content. I just want to see what I can do with what I have existing because I had a lot

Of stuff as you can see from this move. And just see what we can do. I may have to add on some paint into those budgets because every wall needs to be painted and I don’t know if I’m going to do that all in the initial stuff, but I might, I don’t know.

We’ll just have to see what I have stamina for I time for anyways. So I hope that you enjoy this journey along with me. If you enjoyed this episode, here’s another one that I think you like as well. All of my DIY goddesses out there, you are more powerful than we’ll.

See you next time. Bye.