Monday, December 31, 2018

Christmas Day Beach Walk

Christmas afternoon, my brother and I decided to walk down to the beach.

We were not the only people to have this idea.
Over the years, I have seen a great deal of variety on the beach in terms of how many shell types and other things have washed up on any given walk, but there was a ton of stuff that day.
All kinds.
Seriously.
Including tons of these, which I'm not sure I've ever seen there before.
Some of them were quite large--feet for scale!
And by this very old shell, my lemonade class for scale; that thing was huge!
And this pinkish stuff was unusual, too.
Not to mention this guy. (Did I mention that the beach was especially pungent? because wow, was it ever.)
The sky had its interesting moments. 

And people had theirs. I love seeing the things people do in the sand.
Or with other found objects. Granted, this may not be your traditional Christmas tree.
But the attention to detail was impressive.



Merry beach Christmas!

Friday, December 28, 2018

Competing for the "Most Ridiculously Cutest Ever" Title

I got home from knitting last night in time for the second period of the Bruins game. Since it turned out to be no fun to watch, I was happy to have a lap cat who was trying to out-cute her already crazy-cute self.

Try to relax, Maggie.
 Stretch!
Yes, she stayed in this paws-up position for a few minutes.
She kept starting to get crazy, grabbing for my fingers and thinking of biting them, then falling back asleep instead. 
It's a rough life.
Seriously.
"Could you keep it down? Trying to sleep here."
"That's better."
 Zzzzz
I saw this today and felt she would relate to it.

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Order Update

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope yours was good, and if it wasn't, I hope you're at least happy it's over.

Mine was very good, so I have mixed feelings about being back to work. Life...

~~~~~
To follow up on the ordering tale from last week, let me show you some messages that came in all in a row on Saturday:
The message saying that the package arrived was true! Therefore, the auto-messages about ordering the item that I had left in my cart were not. Slight oops from Eddie Bauer, but the end result works for me.

I like the jacket, too.

I'm glad I believed the people who marked it as running small, as I got a size up from what I would have normally, and it's snug, but it still works.

It also came with a little pouch that it squeezes into!
It's a really light jacket; my mother picked up the package and didn't think it could be a jacket, but it was. Light, warm, on a great sale; I can forgive the confusion in the ordering process. They never did answer my message, btw, but the FedEx email updates did work. (The whole process has been up and down, really.)

And now I'm ready for the temperature to dip again, which should guarantee it stays warm for a while.

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Merry Christmas Adam

I got my Instagram on this morning when getting the orange juice ready. I call these, "But oranges are always orange, right?"

My brother is here, and Maggie has accepted him as a member of the cat-loving tribe.
Merry Christmas, Florida-style!

Friday, December 21, 2018

An Ordering Tale, Not Yet Resolved

When I moved down here from Massachusetts, I did not bring my winter coat; the warmest thing I brought was a fleece jacket. And while I don't need a warmer coat often, I decided this fall that I did want to have the option, so I've been keeping an eye out for sales. I even ordered one from Lands End in October, on clearance, but it turned out that they went out of stock before it could ship.

On Monday, I saw an email from Eddie Bauer promising 50% off everything, plus a $10 credit for me. Sounds good! It's not the first sale I saw, on their site and others, but so far I hadn't found anything I liked enough to be worth the cost to me. I went to their website to see if anything appealed this time.

I did find a jacket I liked, and while it was originally $119 (far more than I want to pay for a jacket I won't use much, even one of good quality), with the half-off-plus-$10, and free shipping, it turned out to be $52.47, and that I can live with. I filled in all my info and clicked on the 'buy' button. It took a few moments, then gave me a message that something went wrong, so sorry, try again.

Hmm. I clicked on the shopping cart, but it informed me that my cart was empty. Hmm.

I went to my email, and there was a message that they had received my order. It had an order number and everything. Okay then, it went through!

Later on Monday, though, I got one of those automated did-you-forget-something messages that some sites will do if you leave something in your shopping cart. So it didn't go through, then? I went to the website and sent them a message to ask, did it or didn't it?

On Tuesday, I looked at my credit card website, and the pending payment showed up there, which would imply that the order did go through. And on the Eddie Bauer website, the order was on my account (although only showing the full price of the item, not what I paid). So, maybe it did go through? Still no answer to my message to them, though.

Today, I got another email from them: your order has shipped! But: the message shows the price as $62, not $52. Interesting. Looked at the credit card again, it does show $52, but it's still pending, so that's not set in stone.

This story doesn't have a tidy resolution yet. I guess I'll find out on Monday if the FedEx truck shows up with a package for me. If not before: I signed up for email updates from FedEx, so if that works, I'll know when it starts moving my way. Crossed fingers!

Monday, December 17, 2018

Two Kitten Visits

Since I had such trouble getting to posting last week, I have two sessions of kitten-visiting photos in one!

Last week, there was just the one room, with six kittens in it, the ones I saw two weeks ago.

There was some excitement at being visited.
They're active little bunnies, resulting in some blurred photos.
Some challenging lighting, too.
More blur.
And the classic, stepping out of the frame just as the picture is taken.
Kittens, right? They sure are cute, though.


This week, there were still four of the grey ones there (all pre-adopted, so I guess they'll go home soon), but it was feeding time when I got there, so they didn't have much attention to spare.
They moved from bowl to bowl because the grass is always greener, and once eating was done, it was bath time.




And they all started to fall asleep, so I moved on to the new ones. There's a stray named Willow, who might be six months old, all black, no tail, and since the volunteer who was cleaning up wanted to change the towel in her cage, I picked her up. She was totally fine with it, and purred while I rubbed her head and ears. I must have held her for ten minutes, and she was relaxed and sweet. Find this girl a home! (They will.) I took her picture after she was back in the cage.
Just a ball of stress, right?
Then they had a mama cat and four wee kittens. I reached in to pet the mama, who was in the upper part of the cage (where they can go to get a break from the babies), and the kids were much concerned that they weren't getting the petting.
"What are you doing? I'm down here!"
I did pick up a couple and handle them a little, but mostly I was loving on the mama, and as you can see, she's another lovebug.


I was talking to the other volunteer and had stopped petting but kept my hand there, and the cat went to sleep with her head in my hand. So sweet! Another one who will make a great pet.

And, like Maggie, she will be running the household in no time.