🐈 Cat Tails

 I decided that I'd really like to avoid having cat hair on the new (to us) couch.  This little cat bed has been in Buddy's bedroom, unused, for a few weeks now. Enid actually bought it for her when she was over back in January...

First presentation of it to the bold cat, resulted in her sleeping everywhere on the sofa, except the bed!!! You can see the cushions on the left, strategically placed. She managed to squeeze herself in between those too. Anything but use the bed!!

Well, how much can things change in just one day??!!

These are all photos sent to me by Patrick

Ps. Funny story. Sometimes when Patrick vacates his office chair during the day, Buddy jumps up on it. When she does that Patrick refers to her as a his work colleague. And I refer to her as "his work colleague, Catrick" 🤣🤣🤣 

More bathroom pics and stories for all you Mid Century Florida home fans out there

A tale of two bathroom lights...

Our house was built in 1953 and I was never so happy to see the original tiles in the bathroom.  The wc, sink and bath did not make it, but heck, you take what you can, eh!

These lights...hmmm....not sure what era they are purporting to be from?

Yeah.  I am not mad on them.

From the day we moved in, only one of them has ever been working.  I was convinced that it was a problem with the actual light fitting - if I recall correctly, I did do some investigation and changing of bulbs back then.

Then last week, that one single working light's bulb blew.  I went to Home Depot and bought some new bulbs: they are the funniest little small narrow lenghts of  halogen bulbs. Cost $9.99 for two. Surprise, surprise, I installed the two into the fittings and we had TWO operational lights for the first time ever!

But omg, were they bright!!!  Far, far too bright.  Particularly in the middle of the night if you didn't want to be awoken if you needed to use the bathroom.  So, in the end I ended up taking out one of the light bulbs and holding on to as a spare..

🤔 Hmmm.  Maybe the previous people had the same experience and that is why there was only ever one light in operation.

Oh and also!  Those two big bright lights sure showed off how bad of a housekeeper I am.  So that was a chore for me this weekend: intensive, deep, clean of the bathroom.  Done.

Eats

The eateaning continues in Key West.

We nipped out for a small happy hour/appetizers yesterday evening.  We had originally planned on going to Salute on the beach but boy, was there a HUGE queue when we arrived.  So instead we cycled along South Street thinking we might go to the Southernmost Mansion or Southernmost Resort Cafe.  We do love the Southernmost Mansion but on reviewing the menu outside it was mainly pizza, so the cafe won out.

I got buffalo chicken wings and I have to say, they were really good.  Luscious and juicy and just right spicy.

Patrick had the grilled octopus which he said was delicious - small but quality.

Alonzo's on Saturday evening!  Oysters, ahoy!

Baked Oysters and Connecticut Blue Point oysters on the half shell.  Mahi Mahi fish bites too.

The wine in the pic should be called "So-so".  It was fine.  I do like the company's ethics/values, though: Drink For A Cause | Sozo Wine

This was Friday's night dinner!!!!  A Lou Malnati's deep dish pizza from Chicago.  What a treat.  I never blogged about our lovely Valentine's dinner this year btw.  It was essentially this, with better wine, and Cupcake Sushi for dessert.  Mmmm.

Hope you enjoyed this post and the food pics, friends!

Cudjoe Sales Fisherman's Warehouse

Talk about bad luck! For the first time ever in three years we decided to leave our rods overnight on the boat last weekend.  And guess what, the normally really safe and secure, yacht club had a break in that night.  Rods taken from our boat plus a number of other boats had some missing items too (fancy coolers and the like).  Luckily our garmin/sat nav was not taken.

So this Saturday, we went out to Cudjoe Sales and Patrick bought us nice Penn fishing rods.

Our two trolling rods (big and heavy) are on the left and the two new Penn rods on the right.

Because I am a big spender I bought:

1. A whistle which is a piece of safety kit you are required to have onboard. (We have an air horn at the moment which satisfies the requirement but no harm having more items for catching attention - we also have flares onboard).

The whistle cost the grand sum of $1.99

2. A decal/fish measure.  Cost $8.99

Online Shopping

After the recent shoe debacle, when I came across these flip flops/sandals on the Coach website, I just hit buy. I think they will be nice.  Could not be any worse than the last pair anyway!

I also bought this shirt.  I struggle with "Winter"/cold clothes and I figure this will be useful and versatile when I go to Toronto and Chicago etc this year.

I love the skirt and would have bought it too but unfortunately, I could not see it anywhere on the website.  Pity!

President's Weekend 2023

What a lovely few days, and the long weekend is not even over yet!

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First, timely to mark some sad news about a former President of the USA on President's weekend.  It has been reported that after a couple of recent health issues/hospital stays, President Jimmy Carter has decided to have hospice care at home.  A very good man, and a fine statesman.  Not necessarily the best President but definitely an inspiration and someone to follow as an example of how a President should live his life. 

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Sad news there, aside, I've really had a lovely time over the weekend.  No photos to show for it!!!  Always a good sign eh.

First up, Patrick and I finished the working week the right way - he came into town and we had dinner and drinks in Half Shell Raw Bar.  They were reeeeeally busy and service was slow but to be fair the food was good and we were relaxed so not a big deal.

Then on Saturday, we got up very early and headed out to the crab traps.  We left the house at 7.45, were on the water by 7.55 and home by 9am.  Got a nice amount in the 5 traps so were pleased about that.  We boiled them up (rolling boil for 10 minutes to kill any bacteria) and placed them in the freezer to eat at a future date tbc.  Then quickly had a shower, before Patrick kindly dropped me into work where I had a little bit of a headache to take care of.  I am delighted to report that I was able to resolve the issue much quicker than I expected.  What can I say - we have a great team and when a few of us put our heads together we got there! I was home by noon.  I may, or may not, have gotten into bed for a small little nap at this point.  In my defence, I had a bad night's sleep and  sometimes you have to listen to what your body is saying to you....

That afternoon we joined our friends Joe and Emily to celebrate Emily's birthday.  Joe had surprised her with a weekend in the lovely Casa Marina resort so it was fun hanging out there - along with Isabelle, Katrina, Garret, Dave, Patrick and Bandit the (cat) dog :)

There were TWO weddings taking place so a great buzz and fabulous people watching.

Afterwards, Patrick and I went to the Southernmost Seaside Cafe at the Southernmost Mansion Hotel and were given the most amazing table ever, right at the water's edge.  We shared a lobster pizza which is their specialty and is just incredible.  Near the end the owner of the hotel came and introduced himself and brought us on a tour of the lobby where they have a serious collection of (amongst other items) 8 signed framed letters from Ernest Hemingway, a JFK letter and a Lyndon B Johnson document.  If you are in Key West I recommend you stop by and see their little museum - and try the pizza!!!

On to Sunday....

I took it easy all morning, doing nothing much aside from pottering to Starbucks for a little coffee. And then around 3pm we headed out on the boat for a spot of fishing - trolling and bottom fishing.  Not much success on either to be honest.  But, we did see dolphin!!!  Love that.

Enjoy the long weekend and day off work everyone!

Lost. One pair of birkenstocks

On foot of (excuse the pun, lol!), my most recent big house and bedroom clean up I realized that I'm missing a pair of goldey/bronzey birkenstocks.

Aside. I've just learned, thank you google, that "on foot of" is an Irish idiom!!!! Whaaaatt?? No one else says this? Comment below, do you use this phrase?

Okay. Back to the story.  So while I've been waiting for my birks to turn up I bought this (not birkenstocks) pair below.

Ha! I brought them home and Patrick haaaaated them. Said they look like I had visited the ER and had two foot injuries. Lol. He's not too wrong on second look to be fair 🤣🤣

He did give me a good suggestion though...could I dye or paint them?

Well! Here's the answer. 

They'll do!

Book Recommendation - The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

 I recently recommended "The Light Pirate" to my sister Enid.  She wrote an awesome review of it here:

Life on the Avenue: Book Review: "The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton (renovatinglpa.blogspot.com)

Interested?  Why not ask your local library to order it for you

Ikea Customer Service

My new "Lovbacken" table arrived from Ikea yesterday.  I love it's classic retro design.

Disappointingly it had a small bit of damage:

In real life the flaw is probably not as bad as it appears here.

Ikea's customer service, in my opinion, were excellent to deal with.  I chatted to a rep online and they offered me three options 1. They would pick up and refund 2. They would pick up and replace 3. They would give credit of approximately 20% back to my bank account.

I went for option 3. I couldn't face packing it up, waiting for collection and replace etc. And, like I said, the damage is not that bad in real life.  I can live with it.

Airtag engraving

Buddy needed a new airtag (long story, don't ask!).  So, I took the opportunity to get this one engraved with a little portrait of her :)))))

She has been a few weeks now without her tracker so I feel so much better now to have back protected #helicoptermom lol

In photos it looks a little bulky cumbersome doesn't it? I have to say, she is so good about it, doesn't bother her one bit!  Even with the two things on - the airtag and the oldfashioned tag with Patrick's phone number engraved on it.