Merry Squidmas

This year we got an artificial tree for the first time ever. Malinda decided that it was her lair and enjoyed hanging out underneath it.

Luckily she doesn't bother the lights or ornaments. We wanted to do a sea-creature theme this year, so you can see lots of squids and jellyfish and other marine ornaments. But we didn't have quite enough for this big tree, so David added some others. According to him they are sea walnuts, sea bells, sea hedgehogs, and so forth.

But this one is an octopus.

 And so is this.

And this is a fish (but you can see "sea walnuts" in the picture too).

We had a little gold tinsel tree on the kitchen counter with suns, stars, and moons on it. That one wasn't nautical. We just like suns, stars, and moons.

We did design a sea-creature Christmas card this year, though. This was a rejected design for the card -- it was supposed to look like a Christmas tree, but it didn't look enough like one. It features creatures of the deepest parts of the sea: comb jellies, a piglet squid, the Dumbo octopus. At the top is a kind of sea slug called the sea angel.

Gold

We've had a cold fall this year, and the leaves in Tallahassee are more spectacular than usual. See that blue sky? That's the distinctive shade of blue that the sky turns here in the fall. We look forward to seeing it every year.

 Usually we have one or two colorful leaves. This year we have entire trees full of them.

Even the crepe myrtle outside our apartment window has turned gold and red.

In the afternoon you can see the leaves reflected in the coffee table.

Brilliant.

Fall is All

I really want to start decorating the new apartment for Christmas! But David says it's too early, and he's right. So instead I decorated the door to celebrate fall. We still have our Halloween pumpkins out; they're holding up well. And we have a new welcome mat.

I bought a grapevine wreath and then I walked around the apartment complex and picked up autumnal things to spruce it up a little.

I found magnolia cones, twigs with interesting lichens, dark purple pokeberries, bright purple berries from a native plant called American Beautyberry, and some green berries that I haven't identified.

First Step: Tables

David and I shopped for tables for weeks. We needed a short table for the TV, and I found this stump table at a second-hand shop. It looked wild with all the various things on top of it and the hedgehog lawn ornament underneath.

But once I got it home, it started looking like it was meant to be there. It's the exact height that we wanted. And I love that it's made of cypress wood. That cypress tree probably came from a swamp somewhere nearby.

Here you can see why we wanted a short table: because we wanted to put the TV under the kitchen bar. It's the perfect angle for viewing, and it doesn't take up any usable floor space.

This is our new coffee table. It also looked wild when we first saw it in the consignment store: it's like a cage of old bamboo. At first I thought about painting it. but then we decided we liked its original look. Our idea for the apartment is that it should look beachy, and we keep asking ourselves, "Would a sea captain buy that?" This table looks like the sea captain might have once used it to catch sea creatures.

 A look at the coffee table with the chairs around it for a party.

You can see another one of the new tables we bought -- the cool little end table. It's from Target.

 And we got this vintage plant table. So that's four tables that we've added to the apartment so far!

 Five counting the table on the deck.

 The apartment is starting to take shape. At least we have most of the books on bookcases now.

 View from the couch.

 The dining room table is decorated with owl lamps, pumpkins, a rock collection, and a shell collection.

And we're starting to get some art out, although we haven't hung any on the walls yet.

So far, so good.

Then We Moved

And then it was time for me and David to pack up all of our possessions.

We said goodbye to the old apartment. I can't believe we lived there for seven years!

It was time for a change. We actually moved into a smaller apartment, but we love how light and airy it feels.

 It has a study.

 And a bedroom with lots of closet space.

Here it is all full of our stuff, the first night  after we moved in.

 Malinda wasn't too sure about it at first. She spent the first day hiding under a blanket in the bedroom. Then she moved to the enclosed space in her cat tree.

She found that she really liked this window.

 And then she discovered the joys of living in an apartment with a carpet and sunbeams.

David and I love living here for many reasons. One is the lake and wetlands area next to our apartment.

Next door to us is a cool salvage place where we've found a couple of great things for the apartment.

 We got this table and chairs for the deck.

 And this mirror also came from the salvage place. You might notice that we are going with a kind of squid-themed apartment. I put up squid-shaped hooks and set out our silver octopus bank.

And I covered the old fabric on my great-grandfather's rocking chair ...

 ... with this squid fabric.

I love this pattern.

 We keep it covered with this seahorse fleece most of the time, though, because Malinda likes to sleep here.

We haven't gotten the new place completely set up yet. We don't have a washer and dryer yet, so I go to the Laundrymat every week. I actually really enjoy it.

I'm still busy putting books on shelves, but I did set up the owl lamps (two of them!) on the dining room table, and we got our traditional Halloween pumpkins.

It's still a work in progress, as you can see from the boxes and the stray packing peanuts. But we're starting to settle in.

Fall Means

Pumpkins and squashes on the table.

Pumpkin cream cheese muffins.

And lots of hot tea.