Reptile?

It's a nice relaxing weekend this weekend, mostly because I cleaned like a fiend last weekend. This weekend, I'm doing not much, which is my favorite type of weekend.

Why do I have a picture of a reptiles on this post?  I'm kind of half seriously considering getting a bearded dragon for a pet.  The last two times I've been in the pet store getting cat stuff, I've been kind of captivated by the small, juvenile bearded dragons.  They look somewhat like the horny toads we used to play with when I was a kid, so some of the attraction is nostalgia.  I've always liked horny toads, as you can probably tell from the picture of the baby I came across that stays on this blog.  

The deal is, it's a pretty serious commitment to take one on, especially a baby like this.  As you can tell from the picture farther down in the post, they can get quite large if they live long enough.  At any age they require good care, but when they're little and growing fast . . . well let's just say I'm not going to do it unless I'm prepared to give it the care it needs.  Still . . . the one little guy in that pet store cage was hard to resist.  So I'm considering it.  I'll let you know if I succumb to temptation.

Right now it's too damn cold.  Since I'll have to buy the whole set-up (terrarium, heat lamps, etc, etc) the poor little thing would be frozen before I got it home and set up.  I'm seriously over the really cold temps, and yet it's still only January.  Spoiled much?  But it's high 70s one day and then mid-30s the next day, with night temperatures dipping into the low 20s.  I don't like 20s.  And I definitely don't like teens.  I suppose I should be grateful I live in a part of the country that gets days in the 70s during the winter instead of complaining about the days of low temperatures.  But we've had a lot of really low temps this year.  I covered the remains of the 2 outside aloe vera again the last three nights, but I'm not holding out much hope for them.  And even though it's supposed to be nice today and tomorrow, it's supposed drop below freezing again Monday and through next week.  

As soon as we get a decent temp day on the weekend, I'm going to go out a whack my roses back to nubs.  I'm tired of the long stringy look.  And they say February 14th is the date to try to prune your roses, so it's about time.   Valentine's Day makes it easy to remember to cut back the roses then.   I should do some more outside work, like replace all the foundation-killed shrubbery, but that will have to wait until it's much more Spring-like outside.  Which makes me think - I need to grow another batch of grass for the cat-kids.

Most of the sparrows have disappeared, so the bird-feeders are not needing to be filled anywhere near as often.  Now days I see the ubiquitous morning doves, a few dark-eyed juncos and four or five house finches.  The male house finches are pretty and red right now.  I put out another feeder that holds sunflower seeds rather than the mixed seed.  The finches like both ad frequent both feeders.  The sparrows pretty much stuck with the mixed seed.       

My garage door opener broke again.  It's functioning is definitely related to the outside temperature.  When the temps are around or below freezing, it doesn't work.  I've fixed it twice now and the house repair guys fixed it once, and each time the next time it was freezing outside, the opener broke again.  I suppose I'll have to resort to calling a professional to fix it.  That or get up on a ladder and see if I can tell what the problem is.  Or both.

Anyway, I guess that's about all for today.

Done! House completely done!

Here we are more than half way through January, and I’m just getting around to blogging.  Busy, busy.

I’m in a pretty good mood these days and the primary reason for that is that I like my house again.  In fact, I really like my house again.  I haven’t liked my house since last August, before I realized I was going to have to have serious foundation work done.  I’ve been pretty bummed out about it since then, through all the foundation repairs and slab leak repairs, and before Christmas I got a quote for the interior repairs.  I thought the quote was too high, so I just blew it off until after the Holidays – trying to pretend the work didn’t need to be done.

Last week the people who made the quote contacted me about whether I wanted to proceed, and I thought what the hell, might as well get it over with.  OMG, OMG.  My house looks sooooooooo good.  The last two weeks they’ve been here doing the repairs.  It took them two weeks basically because of the extent of the repairs, but also because they first did everything except the master bedroom/bathroom where the cats were closed in and hiding out.  Then I moved the cats and they finished the master area.  It’s all gorgeous.  They not only have repaired the cracks, they’ve repaired areas that the painters I hired a year and a half ago screwed up.  I didn’t even realize those areas were bothering me until I saw them repaired, re-textured and with new paint.  The people doing the work are meticulous and obviously proud of the job they do.  The place just looks gorgeous and I’m incredibly happy with their work and once again really liking my new house.   Sometimes you do get what you pay for.   On top of that, they fixed my garage door opener which broke when the door froze shut in the ice storm we had.  On top of that, they’re neat.  They cleaned up each day before they left, but they really cleaned up the house before leaving on Friday afternoon so I didn’t spend the weekend between their two work weeks in a disaster area.  *happy sigh*   Really, really happy with the job they did.  In case you couldn’t tell.

A week or so ago I also learned how to give subcutaneous fluids to my elderly cat, Addy.    Needless to say, even shut in the master areas, the workers and noise in the house stresses the cat kids out.  They’ve both been off their food somewhat, and Addy can’t afford to not eat and drink.  Wednesday last week I thought she looked dehydrated and took her to the vet.  They agreed with me and showed me how to give her subcutaneous fluids, and sent me home with supplies if I need to give her fluids at home.  More importantly, they gave me ideas on how to get more fluids into her without the sub-cutaneous fluids, like adding water to her food.   Luckily I haven’t had to give her any fluids since then, but it’s nice to know I can if I need to.

The cat-kids did NOT like being shut in the front bedroom those days the workers were working on the master area.  Getting them in there the first day turned out to be freakishly easy.  I had just finished putting food and water in there and Zoe wandered in and began eating.  (Even though she’d just had wet food, she can always eat).   So I went and got Addy, put her in and closed the door.   Easy as that.  The next two days were not so easy since the cats wised up to me.  Zoe hates to be picked up, and when she spazzes out, Addy runs for hiding and then they’re both a hassle.  

I had lunch a week ago with my sister, nephew and niece-in-law.  My nephew and niece-in-law are super excited (dancing in place excited) because they’re expecting twins.  These are their first kids and she’s just past her first trimester – due around the end of July.   They are so cute about it all.  And are already agonizing over names.  They’re also hoping for a boy and a girl, and should be able to tell that at the next sonogram.

A funny workers story:  I had this white stove on my back patio that the previous owners of the house had left there.  I had just not gotten around to having something done with it (Hey, it’s only been a year and a half.  I’m a world class procrastinator!)  So the last day the workers were here, I told them if they knew anyone who wanted it they could have it and they said they’d take it off my hands.  I was puttering around the house as they were getting ready to leave and all of a sudden I hear yelling on my back patio.  I looked out there, and the head worker was laughing so hard, he could barely stand up.  They eventually got the stove loaded and when they checked in to say goodbye I asked what happened.  When they picked the stove up, a family of rats came out of it!  Four or 5 rats!  He said his workers were dancing around the fleeing rats and yelling.  Man.  I’m glad the stove is gone, and glad I didn’t know rats were nesting in it.  I haven’t seen any of those sneaky little things since early last September. 

As you can see from the pictures, I had to resort to bringing the aloe vera in to save them.  There are two more on my back patio still that I waited too late to save.  We have just had too long of spells of cold weather.  They can survive a day or two of sub-freezing temperatures, but we’ve had a good week a couple of times where the temp dropped below freezing every night and didn’t get very high during the day.  So 4 of my 6 pots will be in the house until it stops freezing. 

Another reason I’m in a good mood is that my weight is right where I want it now, and I just got blood work back that my total cholesterol is 160.  160!  It hasn’t been that low in 30 years.  So my current food intake seems to be fairly good for me, as well as keeping my weight at this point.  I’m feeling healthy these days and am nearly halfway through the INH treatment for LTBI.  Overall my health isn't an issue any more, unless you count the tinnitus and knee pain at night.  

 

This has been a three day weekend, and I’ve spent it cleaning.  Now that all the work is done on the house I’m motivated to clean it really well, so that’s what I’ve been doing.  New paint, no cracks and sparkly clean.  I’m liking the place a lot these days.  Ooh!  Just looked up and realized I need to clean the ceiling fans.  Okay.  Onward.