Dorothy’s Florida Adventure: The Big Move-In

We drove down to Palm Beach Gardens in my little red car.  It was great fun, except for the cat, Alice, who complained all the time she was in her carrier.  In prior trips with felines, I had found classical music would have a calming effect, but not this time.  She made it very clear she was not happy with the situation and was going to make certain that we knew it.  In the hotel room in Ocala where we stopped for the night on the way down, she was fine. She stayed in the room and was quiet during the night.  The next night at the Doubletree in Palm Beach Gardens we had a room on the ground level corridor room all to ourselves.  Alice had a great time looking at the wildlife through the sliding doors.  Once we had moved into the apartment, she was in heaven.  There were large patio doors and multiple windows from which to view all the wildlife -- ibis, wood cranes, osprey, and lizards (lots of them).  And, of course, there were golfers and golf carts out on the course every day.
          

Alice settled in at 526 Club DR

 The truck with our “stuff” arrived on Saturday morning and was quickly unloaded. There were boxes filled up the whole living area.  We unpacked out clothes and washed the bed and bath linens from the master bedroom.  When we made up the bed, we discovered that the king bed was actually two twins beds placed together with one headboard.  In addition, the beds were shorter than regular single beds so the fitted king sheet was loose around the edges.  Most of that day and the following were devoted to cleaning the drawers and unpacking our clothes.

 David left for work that Monday with a few boxes still left to be unpacked.  There was packing newsprint paper everywhere.  The kitchen was fully furnished with lots of pots and pans, but no microwave safe cookware.  There was a coffee maker and a toaster, but it did not last long as the first time we put bread in it, it caught on fire!  (I thought that only happened in movies, but I was wrong.)  As we were avid coffee drinkers, we had brought our own mugs and a set of dishes and glasses to supplement what was in the kitchen.   Unlike my own kitchen, the cabinets were set up high – so high I had to have a step stool just to shelve the clean dishes.   As there was no real space to store the bath towels, I took the top two shelves from the food pantry.

This was a two bedroom apartment, but there were five (5) televisions in the place -- one in the living area, one in each bedroom, and two in two different closets; and three (3) vacuums cleaners.  There were bedspreads, extra rugs, pillows and other household items in the closets. With the help and understanding of our landlord, I was able to clean out the storage closet and box up all the items we would not need from the other closets.  We had tried to use the large TV in the living area, but found it would not work with our DVD player or Apple TV.   It joined the five TVs that found a home in either the dumpster or a charity.  Ditto for two of the three vacuum cleaners.  We upgraded our television experience by adding a new flat-screen HD TV and a Blu-Ray/DVD player to the existing cable box.

Lucky for us, one of the TV units in the second bedroom had had a rotating pullout TV stand that would be perfect for our computer.  With a little creative wiring, we were able to attach two printers and have the extra wires out of the way. 

Because the telephone cord from the modem to the base unit ran from the kitchen along the sidewall to the far east corner behind the sofa, I had to do a little creative moving to relocate the modem and our router under the bedside table in the master bedroom.  Connecting the telephone unit there activated the base unit, so the base unit no longer needed the long wire.  There were enough cables around the apartment to attach the TV and use the wireless router for the computer and Blu-Ray player.  Now the modem in the bedroom was out of sight, but still provided a soft glowing nightlight for the bedroom.

Alice was settled in the second bathroom. She spends her evenings there sleeping in the cupboard under the hand basin. (We have to open the doors for her, or she will keep us up all night trying to open them). I purchased her one of those x-shaped scratching resting places as well as one shaped like a bowl -- they soon became her favorites.  The white L-shaped sofa unit was covered with the beige sheet covers I had made for the sofas in Maryland.  They could be easily washed and would not show Alice’s yellow fur.  Actually, the tiger stripped pillows already there looked better with the beige. A couple of tables and lamps moved and we had a comfortable and smart looking living and dinning area.  The second bedroom became the computer room, office, and craft supply room.

Our apartment was small, but it was becoming a little more like home.