Beach time again........Yah!!!

While I am doing kitty sitting, Steve and I are having "date nights". As I stay overnight with the kitties, I feed them their dinners and then head to our house in Englewood for a few hours. I either fix dinner there or we go out to eat and then head for the beach. The water is much warmer than our last visit and I had to fight a very strong urge last evening to keep from running into the surf. The sunsets are truly beautiful and being there with Steve makes it all that much better. Some nights we head for Dearborn Street in Olde Englewood and go to the Ice Cream Shoppe. Their mint chocolate chip is super.

On a less positive note: I think I am fighting a losing battle with the house in New Mexico. As much as I don't want to be a "hard nose" about the whole thing, I am really tired of being patient and I am starting to feel slightly used. I feel bad for our buyer as I know what it is like to have your spouse leave and I also know what it is like to lose a job. But I think I have been patient long enough and it is time to move on, both for myself and for the buyer of the house. Maybe it was just not meant for him to own that particular home. At any rate, I see another trip to New Mexico in my near future. Not that I don't want to go again; it's just that it really strains the budget and until the house sells I have no other source of income other than social security and the little I make from pet sitting. I'm tired of playing a "wait and see" game...............

Kitty Sitting.......

I am 4 days into my kitty sitting and all is going well. The cats are great! They were all just a little feisty last evening and I did find some chunks of fur on the floor this morning. No one looks the worse for wear and they seem to have gotten it out of their systems. I have tried several times to get all of them in a picture at one time, but it never seems to work. Can't seem to do that at home with the dogs either.

My cousin has arrived and is settling in. She has been alone for many months since her husband passed away and has become accustomed to cooking for one and eating alone. Now she and my son are sharing the house and she will have to relearn cooking for two. Unless, of course, she wants to spend the extra money for Stouffers for two! I am sure she will be back in the swing of things in no time. She ventured out on her own yesterday for the first time to the drugstore and Publix. The dogs think it is great because she is with them all the time. I don't feel quite so much that I have abandoned them now as I will be spending more time with Steve at his home. We still have some work to do there, finishing painting, etc. It will look much brighter when we finish.

I have 4 days between this pet sitting job and the next and I think Steve and I will take a day and go down to Boca Grande and do some shelling. Not too far to travel, but still "out of Dodge" as they say...............

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......

Another beautiful day for the beach people. Steve and I went to Venice beach today and walked from the public beach almost to Venice pier where Sharkey's restaurant is. Got some sun and found a few nice shells. Only one shark tooth. The beach replenishment seems to have depleted the supply of teeth that use to be so abundant. We went into Venice for some frozen yogurt and then back to the house. Life is treating us well.
I finally finished the sweater that I have been working on since last July. I have a scarf to finish for my daughter in-law Kim and then I hope to start on a project for myself. My cousin should be here soon. We are anxiously awaiting her arrival. Even the dogs are looking forward to her being with us again................