I am hoping that by now my cousin is on the road and on her way to her new home with us in Florida. I have not heard from her, but she was to leave Delaware yesterday and is riding with a friend who is driving the truck with her belongings and towing her vehicle. I am excited and will be so glad when she arrives. I think I have the house set up so that we will just have to carry in her furniture and set the pieces in the empty spaces.

I haven't been to the beach lately and am hoping for lots of sun today and a walk tonight after dinner. I have several pet sitting assignments coming up so my evenings of beach walking will be limited. On a very positive note, two of my sitting assignments have inground pools in the yard so swimming (exercise!!) will be a plus.

I think the rest of this year is going to be good.................

Flashbacks.....

I think I must be having a flashback to my dispatching days. Here it is 3 AM and I am still wide awake. I was hoping that once I got the new mattress I would sleep better, but I guess that is not the case. I have a good friend in New Mexico who dispatched for 30+ years, retired in 2006 and is just now starting to sleep normally - most of the time!

I painted the second coat today on the living room wall that we use for accent to make the room look larger. Feels like I accomplished something good. After I scrub the floor behind the sofa, we will push it back where it belongs and I can work on the ceiling. I want to try and get as much of the painting done as I can before the hot weather gets here.

Steve is putting together a bog garden on the screened porch for me. I have never had one before. I have always grown my plants in dirt so this will be a new experience. We may even have a few goldfish in it. There is a small pond in the front courtyard of the house and I found a rather large goldfish in there. It is hard to get a look at it as it hides whenever it sees a shadow. Thinks I am a big bird and it doesn't want to be dinner..........

Latest happenings......

We, being myself, Steve and our good friend Lea, went to the Venice Shark Tooth Festival on Saturday after getting soaking wet walking Turtle Beach in Sarasota on Friday night. Seems as though we have a good time no matter where we go or what we do. Sorta like the 3 muskateers. I honestly didn't think there could be that many prehistoric shark teeth in the world!! I also think that finding them on the beach while walking is more fun than buying them from someone else...

Steve and I have started doing some work around the "Lake House". We bought some paint last week and have started painting the ceiling in the living room. Picked up a color called "Jute" to do one wall in the living room as an accent. We have also been picking up small pieces of wicker/rattan furniture and hope to find either a small brown/green leather sofa or love seat or a wicker/rattan one to replace the sleeper sofa that is there now. Leather cleans so much easier when you have mastiffs that are always trying to be of help. And the cushions on a rattan sofa would be easy to wash. The boys help in other ways also, such as putting their favorite toy, a bowling ball, in the lake behind the house so that Steve has to go swimming to retrieve it!!

We went to Wal-Mart and picked up some hibiscus for the yard to add a little color. The pink one is planted in a pot that I won a few months ago in a drawing at a local consignment shop. I don't usually have that kind of good luck. I was very surprised and pleased. The pot is in one of the landscaped areas of the yard. We have another pot sitting on the deck outside the screen room with a beautiful orange hibiscus growing in it. Thank goodness things are greening up after the awful winter that south Florida had. It is so much more beautiful with the flowers blooming and everything green.........

Beach walking and Pet Sitting

Our beach walking each evening has been put on hold for a few days as I have had two concurrent pet sitting jobs. Festus is the head honcho in this household and has two smaller companions. One is a long haired chihuahua who greatly resembles a pappilion and the second is a lovely kitty named Chloe. I have spent the better part of the last 4 days in the home of these guys.

The other two dogs, both schipperkes, are our home with my son and our 3 schips. They are all getting along well together. I was rather concerned about our youngest male schip as he had not been socialized, but he has taken to the two guests and has even been playing with Sammi the male. Lakota always steals toys from Tala, our female, but backed down from Bitsi when she had a toy in her mouth. Love that pack order......