No Basement cat in this house.

Hello readers. I know you have all been biting your nails waiting to hear news about the Hank/Oscar experiment. Things are moving slowly - but they are moving forward. Oscar is going through several stages:

1. Terror and wtf-ness. Although, he is much too proper to ever use the phrase wtf. Or it's shortened version. I think he would, in his loudest, yet most proper british accent declare: "hWhat in god's name is happening here??" (The extra h in front of what is for emphasis - Oscar always says h before a wh hwhord). Night one - Oscar was extremely disgruntled. I told one of my friends that if Oscar had thumbs, he probably would have made a tiny noose that first night. For a moment I thought he had thrown himself down the stairs... but no. He didn't.

2. Super scared takes over mildly curious. By the morning, Oscar decided it was time to tentatively take over his house again. One tiny paw step at a time. He was fine in the kitchen, a little jumpy, but generally willing to be around the family (the human family). As the day progressed, he tiptoed into the dining room, but stayed away from the doggie gate. But looked from a far at the beastie within. Then, Oscar stared at him from the gate!
3. Shock and awe. After Tim and I returned from our dancing lesson, we began our night time routine - well, new night time routine. Hankus needed to go outside for bathroom time and general awesome snow romping. To avoid any shock to Oscar's system, we carry Hank past Oscar. At first, Oscar would run into the basement screaming. This time however, he simply looked up at us as we carried the beastie out side. And then began to sratch on the door as if he wanted to go outside too! During dinner with a friend, Oscar actually hung out with us in the dining room (purring, cleaning - normal cat things).

4. One step back - but not in a bad way. After Mr. Hank ate, we took him outside for another bathroom break and snow romp. When we bring him in, we keep him by the door to wipe of the snowy paws and face. Well, he got a little excited because Oscar was actually still in the kitchen...and Hanks wanted to be friendly. And Oscar did not... nothing major here, just a friendly puppy who is just a bit bigger than the cat running up to him with every intention of making a new friend only to be hissed at and swatted across the nose. Hank didn't flinch. Oscar looked ridiculous as he tried to escape and become Basement cat once again, but was too freaked out to open the basement door. So he scuttled up stairs. Good news here people - Oscar did not puff up - no puffy tail, no puffy back, nothing. I think he was just more offended than anything. So this is good.

5. Snuggles! While Oscar is still cautiously dismissive of all things new beastie, he did eventually make it into the living room for a very nervous snuggle down time. I was shocked. It has only been about 24 hours since his life was kind of turned upside down and here he is, taking such slow steps that the wood floor creaked underneath him - was making his way to the loveseat for some quality snuggledown time. Ah, progress.

6. He is currently sitting next to me as I write this - not totally relaxed, but the Hankopottamus is in the crate pretending to sleep, but occasionally stirring. Oscar is keeping an eye on him. I'm hoping that he'll be sniffing the crate soon.

As for Mr. Hank, I am happy to report that we haven't had any accidents - he's going to the bathroom outside, eating all his food, having a lot of fun during supervised play time, loves the snow, and is sleeping through the night (one little wake up last night, but for 2 minutes. Maybe more of shift that a wake up). We couldn't be happier with him. I know Mr. Kits will grow to love him too. Best Friends!!

More pics soon. Maybe a video if I can figure it out on my phone. It may be time to get a simple digi camera...

Just a quick introduction...

We adopted Hank tonight. He is a delightful Newfie/Lab mix (or at least that's what we're guessing). I'll have a million more pictures tomorrow, but here is a little tease. Enjoy!

Some old but new photos

Hi readers. I have a cold which means that I will finally plant myself in front of the computer and fill you in on life in Ohio. Needless to say, it's been busy. Lots of fun kinds of busy! We celebrated Christmas here in the new casa with the Snider clan as well as with Linder, Mimi, and Keith. He has provided the photos of Christmas - thanks Keith!

I had some issues decorating. Tim and I had our tiny apartment to decorate and most of the decorations we had were gifts given to us from former students or hand me downs and who not. I love all the ornaments that Linder generously donated a few years ago - they're all mostly hand made ornaments from when Tim was a wee lad. But we were definitely lacking in around the house decorations. What to do? Well, luckily we have oodles of coniferous trees on our property and are close to a Crate and Barrel and a Target. We wanted to keep things simple, so I bought two boxes of Christmas balls (50 silver and 50 red), two spools of ribbon, some snowflakes, and a whole lot of fresh pine branches from our yard. Made 10 ball clusters and trimmed everything with pine branches! Turned out to be quite nice!

In other news, we bought a couch. I should be delivered in oh, another 4 1/2 to 8 1/2 weeks. While we made it through Christmas with limited seating, we had a Winter Classic Party (one of the best hockey events of the year for all you non hockey fans) and that proved to be a bit of an issue. That and our rabbit ear television decided to wonk out during the game, so I had to sit on the floor next to the tv and be the human signal conductor. I didn't mind since the game was kind of sucky this year. It was way more about the company and food and bringing new people together. The r on the keyboard is broken and is beginning to drive me crazy.

I would say we've settled in quite nicely. We've had wonderful evenings in front of the fire place for the past few weeks, Cleveland is blanketed with snow, and we've put the flannel sheets on the bed. We're making plans for spring, Tim has his seed savers catalog on the coffee table and we've been pouring through it to decide what to plant. I've been making calls to places to see how much it will cost to rent a wall paper steamer (to remove the olive paper in the dining room). We're gearing up for projects and cannot wait to begin. However, potentially big news, our next project may be a new puppy!! We're going to take a look at some newfie puppies tomorrow, right before our Swing dance lesson! Yes, we're quite happy.

I'm also adding some photos of our time in Canton, Mass. our last trip out there befoe we made the big move to the mid-west. We had a great time with the Geaghan-Vieira clan for Halloween. Tim and I dressed up as Sushi. He was tuna and I was salmon. Yum.

Enjoy!

Le sigh. I've found a minute

Hello readers. We're hunkered down in the house, it's been snowing like mad here. As you can see from the lead photo. Since I didn't derby tonight, I decided that I needed some good exercise. So, I shoveled. The whole driveway. And the sidewalk. And when I finished, another it had snowed another inch. But I bought some awesome Sorel Joan of Arctic boots and I wore snow pants and my bubble goose and I was set.

This was one of the first days here. This is Tim in the fall courtyard.

I started my new job at Hathaway Brown two about a week and a half ago. It's wonderful. I've already worked on book orders, met with my mentor group a few times, got the Hathaway Book Council excited about the up coming year, will be doing a book talk on Jane Eyre and the creative fiction that came out of it, tomorrow (to two sophomore classes!) and set up some info lit classes with the seniors in the international relations class. And that's about half of what I've done. Much more, but, I'll save it for later. I actually have to go to bed soon because my new hour of wakefulness is around ten of six. But I love my new job. It really was the right choice - even as I hear about more horror stories about budgets at Brooklyn Public Library. Stay strong librarians.

And here is kitty in the fall courtyard - he is doing just great by the way!

I've added random pictures to this blog - sorry, nothing inside the house yet. I don't really want to capture everything on my camera phone.. perhaps santa will bring me a digital camera for Christmas? I'll write more soon, hopefully over the weekend. Oh wait! We'll be decorating THIS:

this weekend! Hooray!

Happy Homeowners!!

My dear readers,

We are homeowners. Tim and I arrived safely last Saturday night in Cleveland Heights. Our drive was really un-eventful. Kitty was awesome, just some meows initially, but he slept or was seething (I don't really know) the rest of the way. We drove across 80 into a beautiful sunset and made it to our (OUR) home (HOME!) in about 8 hours. Our first night here, with our limited supplies, we made grass-fed burgers with Amish cheese and a tiny salad and some Christmas Ale. We sat on the floor of our dining room. It was quite magical.

On Sunday, we drove the rental car to the Home Depot, bought some gloves and a rake and took care of our very leafy yard. We have a giant oak tree in the back yard and it decided to shed all of it's leaves in our driveway and in our gutters. Time to get to work. We cleaned out the gutters (yes, that's me on the roof)
and raked all of the leaves and felt quite happy with ourselves. We met up with Johnny for dinner at the restaurant in Ohio City for dinner and nearly fell asleep on his couch (we still didn't have any furniture). It's still very strange to drive (DRIVE) home (HOME)!

Car shopping was awesome. We test drove two cars - the Hyundai Elantra Touring, a sassy little wagon, and the Toyota Matrix. We ultimately chose the Hyundai, as I felt the Matrix was a bit of a death trap. Here we are with our awesome car salesman Charlie. And below that, a picture of Tim and me with our new car. It's pretty wild.

Totally rocking the wagon

So much more to tell you my dear readers. My parents visited us this weekend and brought a washer and dryer. Tim and I did laundry today, and I snapped this photo of mr. beans when I was walking back upstairs with my lamper (laundry basket/hamper).

We learned a lot about the plumbing in our house when we connected the washer, another trip to Home Depot and Target for laundry supplies, a leveler, and a mop. Our next big purchase will be a shovel, as it is supposed to snow this weekend!

I'm very sleepy tonight readers. We have two more rooms to unpack - Tim's office and my imagination room - the place where I can hide and read, sew, make fun crafty things, and write blogs or attempt NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

I will write more soon, but I wanted to share some photos and let you know that we are quite happy. The top photo is of our powder room. It's red. I bought these lovely little dried flowers at the Shaker Square Farmers Market on Saturday. More soon, I promise.

Last day.

Good morning readers...

So, today is my last day of work at Brooklyn Public Library. It's a bittersweet ending - I've been given a lot of opportunities to grow as a librarian at the library and made some lovely friends. But, it's time to go.

Tim and I finished packing yesterday at 4:30 and celebrated with, appropriately enough, Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale... so super tasty! Then we had a lovely walk to The Vanderbilt, a delicious restaurant in Brooklyn, just about a mile from our apartment. Click on the link to see their menu and go there - awesome happy hour drinks AND noms!

I also took some photos on Wednesday evening just before and after getting my bangs trimmed of some of my favorite places along my walk. Here is my favorite girlie store Flirt!

I once received a great skirtificate and designed a skirt! They have amazing clothes and accessories. I still have a wallet that I bought in 2005 - granted, it's taped up with library tape now, but I cannot let go of it. There is a little shop on Coventry in Cleveland Heights that appears to have a similar philosophy and style to Flirt called Blush Boutique... ah, so girlie.

Here is a delicious little food shop that I will be visiting for the last time today - Blue Apron Foods. I think I've spent more money here over the last 4 or 5 years than any other place in Brooklyn. A great selection of olives, charcuterie, breads, desserts, cheeses. And everyone in the store is super friendly. I hope I can find a place just like them in Cleveland.

And I'm really going to miss my DerbyFit girls - I'll definitely keep you updated and hopefully will send updates on my quest to become a Burning River Roller Girl... we'll see.

It's hard to say goodbye to Brooklyn. But I'm ready. Thank you Brooklyn for a mostly wonderful 5 years. Unless anything ultra exciting happens in the next 24 hours, like kitty growing an awesome afro with chops, I'll next be posting from our new home. Let the excitement begin!

Back and Taking Off

Hello dear readers. Much news since the last post... way back in who knows when. I hope I haven't lost you. You'll be better kept informed of the life in the Geaghan house from now on - hopefully on a more regular basis. One last relaxing day shown above back in June with Tim and Lana lounging on the beach after the Mermaid Day Parade.

We'll do the news first. As many of you know, my library spoke of lay-offs back in May. I decided that it was time to seek employment elsewhere. Tim and I have lived in Brooklyn for 5 years now and the lay-offs were just a sign to nudge us along onto our next adventure. I applied for several jobs and several nibbled. But I found one that I liked a lot and hey, they liked me too. I will now be an upper school librarian at an independent school in the lovely state of Ohio. Tim and I bought a house and we will be packing up the wagons this weekend and heading west (well, west of Brooklyn, NY!) next weekend.

So, the focus of the blog will change - as our life did. For those of you who know us well, we've been traveling along like molasses for the past 12 years... and year 13 basically slammed it's foot down on the gas pedal. Marriage and now a new home. I'll have more details on that in the next post - but as a teaser - the new background here is our courtyard. Yes, our new house has a courtyard.

For now, I'll leave you with some of my favorite pics from the Coney Island Mermaid Day Parade (n.b. I donated these photos to the Brooklyn Public Library - so there will be an Olivia Geaghan photo collection there). I'll be in touch again soon!