Sunset, a mystery plant, and a mitzvah

Has it really been that long since I posted? Well, I have an assortment for you today...

Firstly, a gorgeous sunset pic that I snapped when we were going to get some dinner last week. I took it out the side car window while we were stopped at a traffic light, and I tilted the camera to get as much sky in as I could so that's why it looks a little odd... but aren't those clouds gorgeous with the setting sun behind them?



Nextly, we have a mystery plant that's just popped up in our empty garden bed. I don't know if it's an actual plant that was dormant when we moved in and now it's woken up for the Spring, or if it's a noxious weed that blew in and took up housekeeping in the otherwise empty bed... I'm more than a little afraid that it might be poison ivy, but since I've never seen the stuff before I really don't know what it looks like! Any and all opinions are welcome... I put a whirly gig next to it for scale so you can see that it's grown more than a foot in a week... it looks like it's looking for something to climb up.

And lastly, John rescued a litter of orphaned bitties today. The little ones were crying in the bushes at a bank branch and the tellers said that mama had been around and not let anyone get close, but she's disappeared. The poor little babies were hungry and cold and lonely so they were crying for somebody to help them and John heard them... he put them in a box and called around until he found an animal shelter to take them too, then he drove them over there in person. I wish we could have kept them, but we have too many cats already... They're too young and we already have too many furry mouths to feed. There won't be any new feline residents in our household until at least two have gone to the Rainbow Bridge, hopefully in many years since they're aged 8-10. Plus it takes a special person to bottle feed a litter of five! I'd go insane from sleeplessness inside a week... I made him take a picture for me before he handed them over, but that's as close as I got to seeing them. Praying for them to grow up strong and healthy and to find loving homes... they're totally adorable and I'm sure they'll be extremely adoptable in another four weeks or so when they're old enough to be seperated. The little white one was mountaineering up John's arm all the way to the shelter, so they're not afraid of people, and that's one big plus on their side. If we were Jewish I'd say John definitely did a mitzvah today and I'm very proud of him for taking the time to help when he could have said 'it's not my problem, I'm too busy'...

A beautiful Spring day in Jupiter and Hobe Sound

John had to run a short call down in Jupiter so he took me with him to see the lighthouse... the weather was GLORIOUS today! We'll go back one day when I've managed to kick my asthma and do the lighthouse tour, but for today I just snapped some pics, then we drove up the beach road and stopped at Hobe Sound for a few more piccies of the beach.

Jupiter Lighthouse

Very tame pelicans (but they didn't want to look at me)

A seagull on the beach

A glorious day at the beach

 

Bridge across the intercoastal waterway at Hobe Sound (sorry you can't see much...)

And lastly, a HUGE tree... we had to stop for ages at a light and this tree trunk was right next to my window, so I took some pics. I adore the intricate braiding of the roots...

Completely gratuitous cat pics

The girls decided on mass cuteness this afternoon... so I give you some cat pics. The only one I haven't seen acting cute is Tess... but I'm sure she'll make up for it later.

Scouty thinks that my desk is there solely for her sleeping benefit... and if I'm lucky she'll let me use my keyboard and mouse over on the right-hand corner.

Scouty giving me a look of complete and utter ineffable(sp?) cuteness.

Silver is bird-watching from the bedroom window sill... only unfortunate thing about this habit is that she uses me as a springboard to get there!

Never mind the perfectly good pillow I put into an empty drawer to make a cosy cat basket - Zho-Zho decided she'd rather sleep in the little one.

Spring time in Florida

On the weekend we drove over to Okeechobee... there's not much there, but the 'highway' to get from Stuart to there is GORGEOUS. 'Old Florida' at its best. The speed limit is only 40 or 50 so it takes a long time to drive, but there are so many miles of magnificent Floridian trees lining the road that it didn't seem like a long trip at all. We came back on a more major highway and it was a regular old divided road so the trip was faster, but not nearly as interesting. Glad I could see the forest first!

Then yesterday John had to run a call in West Palm Beach so I went with him to go to Brandsmart and buy ourselves a chest freezer for the duplex (there's almost no room in the freezer because it has an ice maker taking up more than half of the already tiny space and we like to buy meat in bulk to save money). While he worked in the bank, I walked the short block to the beach and sat under a shady palm tree enjoying the blissful balmy Florida spring afternoon. Ahhhh... sometimes it's really nice to live in Florida!

Getting settled bit by bit... Our Living Room

Ignore the mess... as you can see there are boxes EVERYWHERE still! But I'm doing my best. Last night we opened some of the boxes in the craft room and started organising in there. No rush to finish - I had some of this stuff boxed up for a month before we left, I don't need it tomorrow! This first batch of photos is our living room... as you can see there's a TON of space in here, so I put the love seat sideways across the room with the bookshelves and all the stacked boxes behind it... but there's more than enough space for a full-sized sofa bed, so at some point I expect we'll buy one. Then we can actually have overnight guests as long as they like cats! I'm also going to get two more bookshelves to match the two I've got and we'll have a wall-of-books on that back wall, instantly doubling the size of our library space, and making them look less silly against that tall peaked wall. I love the sloped roof, but it's a lot more vertical space to fill than I'm used to! At some point we'll buy a picture hanging kit and get some art on the walls but for now they're big empty tan slabs.

Moving In

The movers came on Monday Feb 24... it took them ALL DAY to move us, and it's going to take weeks to get all the unpacking done. But after four days here it's starting to feel more like home. There's a TON more room here than I expected - our furniture (which just fit nicely into the old apartment) is dwarfed by this one. I've always had to jam my little bedside table in front of the bedroom door, but there's enough room in this bedroom to easily fit a full bedroom set for the first time ever! And next time we get a new bed, it'll be a king size! Photos of the preliminary unpacking coming next, but first here's a few moving shots.

John  and I supervised the move from our chairs... the movers left them till last, and brought them off the truck for us first. Good thing too - we were standing in the empty duplex for nearly two hours waiting for them to show up and my back was killing me from not being able to sit down any place!

And the furniture goes out the door piece by piece...

Ready to unload... that was a BIG truck and our stuff nearly filled it. They sure earned their money moving us! Loading up took two and a half hours, unloading only took one because there were no stairs...

Our new apartment (pre-move in)

Yes, it's a mess... but that's because the landlord hadn't cleaned it up yet, just hauled out the trash. We move in on February 24th and he's promised that the things that need fixing (some broken tiles, marked up walls, broken closet doors and drawers) will be fixed this week.Click to see the 'before' pictures. One day I'll hopefully have 'afters' for you!