Spring Projects (and Surprises)

Today, I think, is the first day of spring.  Actually it's felt like summer for the past week, but who's complaining.  It's been in the mid to high 80s for the last week with no rain.  The trees are budding, the flowers and azaleas are blooming, and the pollen is....well, it's pretty bad, and I'm not usually bothered by pollen.  Everything outside has a yellow tint to it.  We need a good rain to, hopefully, wash some of this pollen away!

Our powder room redecorating project has slowed to a crawl.  On Saturday morning Ken and I got up with the intention of going to Home Depot and buying the vanity/mirror and all the other stuff needed.  But before leaving, we stripped our bed and threw the sheets in the washing machine.  About 20 minutes later, while I was still sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, I heard an awful noise coming from the washing machine and hurriedly got up and turned it off.  Long story short, after quickly checking it out, Ken declared the washing machine dead.  Apparently the transmission had failed.  Why do appliances go bad at the most inopportune time?  It never fails! 

So after "hand-wringing" the king-size sheets out, we headed to Home Depot to buy the vanity and look at washing machines.  Being ever the practical one, Ken decided, and I agreed, that we should buy the less expensive and smaller vanity for the powder room -- especially since we were about to fork out the money for a new washing machine.  Here's a picture of the display unit at Home Depot.

Unfortunately it's still in the box in the back of my car.  LOL.  Ken did get the new light fixture hung tonight, and I hung some pictures -- I know, that's backwards, but I need to feel like we're making progress.  Hopefully we'll get this little project finished this weekend.

We looked at washing machines at several places Saturday before deciding on a Maytag at Handy TV & Appliance.  We originally were only planning on getting the washer, but because Handy offered us a pretty good deal (with 12 months same as cash, which Mr. C. likes), we bought the dryer too.  They will be delivered in the morning. 

Ken and I went to the lake on Sunday afternoon for a couple of days of R&R -- although we really never are on "vacation."  He had a conference call yesterday morning that lasted awhile and other phone calls and emails to deal with, and I, unfortunately ended up with a rush job this morning that I had to get out immediately.  But despite the work interruptions, we had a great time.  The weather was beautiful, and we had planned on taking the pontoon out for a short cruise, assuming it would crank!  But Mother Nature and another "mother" had other plans for us.  Ken went down to the dock yesterday after lunch and was checking the 'toon out.   He was taking the life jackets out of the seats to air out, and much to his surprise, this is what he found in one of the seat boxes:

Yep, five baby kittens.  They looked to be four to six weeks old.  Their eyes were open, and they were meowing.  We had gotten a glimpse of an older cat in our neighbor's yard earlier yesterday but didn't think anything about it at the time.  After talking to one of our neighbors, we found out who the "cat lady" in the neighborhood was.  LOL.  Apparently she has a lot of cats (of all ages), and that kitty that we had seen earlier in the day is notorious for having litters on a regular basis.  This time she just happened to have her litter on our boat.  I guess that's what we get for leaving the seat propped open.  LOL.  We talked to the neighbor with the cat yesterday afternoon, and she was duly mortified that her cat had had her kittens on our 'toon.  But we were not the least bit worried about the 'toon -- in fact, we had decided to finally have it overhauled and refurbished.  As I knew would be the case, when told about the baby kittens, Erin said, "But, Mom, y'all can't leave those kittens there; you HAVE to do something!!"  Luckily we saw Mama Kitty coming back from the area of the boat last night at dinner time, so we knew she was taking care of them.   This morning when we went down to check on them, they were gone!!  Apparently Mama Kitty had moved them last night, or Mama Kitty's owner came and got them  without us knowing.  I tend to think Mama Kitty moved them herself!

So because of the kittens and also because it was extremely windy yesterday and today at the lake, we did not try to take the pontoon out.  Pontoon boat rides on windy days are a no-no -- at least for us novice boaters.  It's too hard to get the boat back into the slip when the wind is whipping!!  So we'll save the cruise for the next trip.  Hopefully the weather will be nice (minus the wind). 

I'm feeling really good.  Life is good, and I'm so appreciative for the small things -- sitting on our swing watching the sunset at the lake, listening to the birds sing, watching the fish jump by the dock, reading a good book and not feeling guilty about it, all those things I used to take for granted!!

Rachel