The Little Nuthatch

This morning I went to the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge to go down their birding trail (Black Point Drive- one of my favorite places) but it was closed due to flooding! I should have known, things haven't quite recovered from Tropical Storm Fay. Since the trail was closed, I went to the beach instead. I couldn't waste driving an hour to the coast, and I don't regret it- the beach was beautiful and it was really refreshing to be out by the sea. I still saw a lot of birds, too!

Today marks one week in my new home. I'm renting, with my boyfriend and two of our friends. I moved in last Friday, and took the week off work to fix the house up. It was a week of painting, cleaning, organizing, shopping for important house things, and building furniture from IKEA. It was pretty stressful, but now the house is ready to relax in! (And time to get back to artwork!) It's pretty cool, just around the corner from where I lived before with my parents. Like my old home, it's on 5 acres and we've had deer with...

New art. Very serious business. BATMAN! They're from Pictochat on the Nintendo DS last night while we were sitting in the theater waiting for The Dark Knight to begin. Photographed by Alina, who also drew the lovely sailboat scene and such. The Dark Knight was marvelous!!

One of my new roomies has seven cats. We were rather nervous about there being so many, but they are all very sweet and also energetic and fun to play with. Then when they get tired from playing they sleep together so lovingly!! I love them! Glimpses of my new backyard... Unfortunately at this time it's too hot, sticky, and buggy to properly explore. But I can tell it's going to be fun in the fall!

Here are some new paintings... The tropical birds in the paintings above are the Jamaican Tody, the Rufous-crested Coquette, and the Resplendent Quetzal. How's life? I'm moving a week from today, so I'm pretty busy with that and also excited! But mostly, I miss Fria.