The Morning After…
…the first night in the new house 🙂
Monkey
We’re Moving
We’ve been talking for a while now about living separately again. We’re both ready for, and in need of, more personal space. So we’ve been looking at the new available houses for rental on the housing cooperation’s website each week. We both need to move when we do this, as the current house is too expensive for either one of us to afford alone. So, we figured it might be a while before we could do this. We would need a week with two good houses, or to find a house for one of us that is still big enough so the other can temporarily move with.
This last option has now become reality. Earlier this month a house around the corner from our current house became available on the website. Nienke signed up for it and fought herself at the fifth or so spot. After some calculations to see if it was affordable, I also signed up. When Nienke asked me what spot I was in, I checked and found I was first. And I was still first when the sign-up closed after a week. This was quite a shock as we had not expected it to go this fast.
By now, we’ve sort of gotten used to the idea. Nienke will come along with me for now and look for her own place from the new house. The layout of the ground floor is different, more cosy than in the current house. The first floor layout, though, is similar to what we have here. So we can just move everything over and keep most things the same.
We’ve started packing. This week I also signed the purchase agreement with the previous tenant for the floors, curtains and so on. August ten I go to see the housing cooperation to sign the paperwork and get the keys.
Stuff is happening, and I’m excited 🙂
Another Selfie. Also, Dessert
I love it when Monkey goes to lie on the sheepskin on the back of the chair. He always ends up against my back/neck 🙂 (January 26)
Sturdy custard pudding (January 23)
First Impressions of 2015
January 2
January 7
January 8
Holidays
Both trees are up now, it looks grand 🙂 Even better that last year, then we couldn’t fit both trees in the living room, so we had the other in the hall.
M
onkey also approves of the tree, he fits nicely with the winter picture 😀
I’ve also, over the last few days, put the final touches on the plans for christmas dinner so I now have a menu, a shopping list and a timeline of preparations. Bring on the 25th!
Threes
Three cats keeping me company while reading the other day.
Decorated my winter tree (of of the two we’re putting up, Nienke does the other one) yesterday.
And today, Eva, Jarig and Julius came to drop off three cabinets. When they moved into their farm, the previous owners left a lot of stuff behind for them, including a bunch of cabinets, standing in one of the barns.
When I first saw these, I already liked them. At first, since not everything was in place yet, they were using some of them, but Eva mentioned not really liking them. So I asked, if neither Anneke nor Julius wanted them, if I could possibly have them.
A while later, it turned out that (fortunately for me) they didn’t want them either, so I could have them. I am, unfortunately, not in the possession of a driver’s licence or a car big enough to take them, so that was the end of it for a while.
Then Eva called this morning, would it be okay if they came by? Which they then did early afternoon. We carried the cabinets into the garage, where they are to be placed while we live here. They are made of massive wood, and metal shelf-bearers, so they were quite heavy.
I left them there for now, I’ll be cleaning and putting them in place over the weekend.
Cat Tree House
Cat Tree came yesterday! I spent most of the evening building it, so I shall regale you with pictures 😀
  
It has lots of parts…
 
Halfway done, and done! Monkey and Milo approve. Captain was off elsewhere, sleeping.
 
Daytime pics from today for good measure
And a sleepy cat from two days ago to close 🙂
Origins
It’s been six months since Murphy died, and I started missing a third cat in this big house. Nienke herself doesn’t (yet) want a new cat, so a little while ago she asked what I thought of a cat for my birthday. Needless to say, I was rather happy 🙂 We then involved my Mom to join in, as sheltercats are still fairly pricey. Since I have a week off now, we decided to go to the shelter on Monday. We could pick out a cat, and he could get used to stuff with me being around for those first few days.
I had in mind a young cat, two or younger. Figured it would be easier to introduce that into the pack.
At the shelter there were a bunch of more special needs cats out and about in one part of the building, and two more, a red and a black one, in a smaller room. The rest were in the cages waiting. After chatting with one of the workers, about the cats present it turned out that basically all young cats are fostered and the ones here are regular adults. I understand that fostering is good for the cats, but it is also hella inconvenient as a lot of foster addresses are in the city or elsewhere and then you have to go there to see the cat. So I figured I check out the ones present, after all, adult cats are fun, too, as evidenced by Monkey who was four when I got him.
One of them was still young, about three, and had just come back from fostering. The worker released that one from the cage so I could watch and interact. I liked her a lot, she was a slinky thing, and seemed interested in the room. She didn’t mind the other cat, the black one, walking around and being interested in her. She didn’t really seem interested in the people, though.
After she was put back in her cage, I checked out the others in the cages. All the while, the black one was calmly moving about, eating, or asking for attention. The red one was sleeping on top of a cat tree and didn’t really seem to care we were there. While checking out the cats, I kept going back to the black one. He was quite calm and loved the attention. His behaviour while the slinky cat was out seemed to indicate he was fine with other cats. He had a bit of a hissy when red cat came down from the tree and got too close (by then it also wanted attention) but otherwise was fine.
Slinky cat, according to the worker, had some notes that she wasn’t always very friendly towards other cats in her foster home, and with the head bumps the black one kept giving me, I chose him.
We took him home, and I put him up in my bedroom. I’d put a litter box there and some food and water, so he had a private place to get used to things. He first spent some time under the bed. I installed myself on the bed to read and get him used to my sounds. He came out for a wee bit to eat and sniff things, then went back under. Later he moved to on top of the bed and he checked out the view from the window sill.
After thinking about it for some time, I named him Captain Blackbeard. Or, in full: Captain Edward “Blackbeard” Teach 🙂
In the evening, I started opening the door a wee bit. Captain was carefully curious from the inside. Monkey ignored it. Milo was carefully curious, and hissy, from the outside. After Monkey and Milo were gone again, I opened the door further and, with a bit of coaxing, he explored the hallway.
At night, he slept on my bed mostly. In the morning, he let me know quite clearly that he was awake, and that he was hungy, and that I should feed him like NOW. Then, I opened the door again, and this time he went out to check on his own.
A little later, I let Monkey and Milo outside for a bit and brough Captain down stairs so he could explore there and get a feel for the scents and the layout. He was a bit apprehensive, but calm and seemed to like it 🙂
 
 
 
Jut & Jul
Went to see Guardians for the third time, with Kim, Nico and Jeroen. I love that movie more every time I see it.
