It's that time again....

Like most of you, I haven't had much time for blogging lately. Actually, I haven't had much to blog about, until recently. But I find myself sitting in front of the computer, most of my housework done, my inbox cleared, the animals fed, my husband at work, a cup of coffee next to me, and I realize it's a perfect time for reflecting. And so, I will attempt to get down on paper (sort of...) a summary of recent noteworthy events, and thus preserve them for posterity.

First, and most important....today was the deadline for final grades to be posted, and as expected, I ended the semester with a 4.0. As for that chem class I've been sweating all semester, ironically, I had the highest grade in the class - 99.4%, and anyone with an A was exempt from the final. I don't think I've ever had a 4.0, not even in high school...maybe for one quarter, but never at the end of the year. I'm only halfway through this year, but next semester I'm taking the second half of the subjects I just took, so I'm not worried. As an added bonus, even though I went into this past semester with the solitary goal of learning, I managed to make a few friends on the way, and even had a couple nights of study group at my house during finals week. We even had a bonfire here a week ago...a small affair, but fun and very laid-back, a good way to relax and forget temporarily the stress of math and science. I'm so glad I'm not living in an apartment anymore!

Christmas is only five days away. Chris and I are heading home on Sunday, and he'll be coming back here on Tuesday...back to work for him, say sorry. I, on the other hand, am in a unique position to stay at home for a few extra days and come back next weekend. It's so exciting!! Not only will I get to see my best friends whom I haven't seen since August (that means you, Fletch, I can't wait!), but my mom is bringing me back and staying overnight. I'll get to show her the town, and the VT campus, where I'll be going to school in the fall. It's nice because when I was at DePaul, Mom never got to see the campus...and when I was in high school and looking at colleges, she went to see a few with me. Besides, it's so beautiful here, I can't imagine anyone coming here and not being happier for it. My sister might be coming as well, which would be awesome!

I know I've been saying for months that I'd get some good pictures of Mojo up here...well, these aren't good pictures, but they're pictures, dammit! :)

Remember how small he was when I brought him home in August? No? Okay, here ya go:



It's been four and a half months since then, and he's growing so fast!



He's gotten a lot more red, even though he's a little dull right now...he'll probably shed in the next week.





That's about all I have for now...the computer's so damn slow right now anyway, what with all the shows Chris is downloading, I've been working on this post for about two hours, and I'm hungry! Happy Yule, everyone!

Hoorah!

I'M HOME!!!!!

It's not really home until you're sleeping in a real bed again.

So much has happened in the last week, it's hard to remember it all, but I'll give you the highlights. We left Florida Friday night last week and drove all night to Buford, SC to stay with some friends. While we were there, we went down to Savannah and walked along River Street, something I've been wanting to do for a while. It's so beautiful! And as an added bonus, both candy shops on River St have free samples of homemade pralines! Yummy! We left Monday morning to head up to VA, thinking we were going to be able to move into our house, but the guy that just left wasn't out yet, and the landlord wanted to have someone come in to shampoo the carpets, so we were stuck in a hotel room with three people, a dog, and a carful of stuff for two days. But, we got to start bringing in our stuff on Wednesday, and the moving truck showed up early Thursday morning with the rest, everything present and accounted for, and nothing broken. Some of it is still out on the porch (I have a porch!), but the important things (bed, kitchen, sound system) have been set up, and the rest is just details. We'll be unpacking all day today, and probably tomorrow. If we can get it all done, we're leaving on Monday morning to spend some time with our friends and family over in Maryland and the D.C. suburbs. What's a 5 hour drive when we've been 17 hours away for the past year and a half?

On another note, my corn snake is healthy, happy, and not nearly as stressed as I worried it might be. I set up its home last night and fed it, thinking it might not eat from the stress of all the moving, but it had that pinky down in less than five minutes. A good sign, and it's calming down rather quickly. As soon as I get it to a vet and it becomes a he/she, I will name it and put some new pictures up.

I drove up to NRCC in Dublin on Tuesday to turn in my Financial Aid paperwork and pay the balance on my tuition. It's a very pretty campus, and not that far away. I'm definitely looking forward to going to school there.

There's so much time, and so little to do...wait, scratch that, reverse it...

:)

Why should I have to title these things?

Saturday night, while I was in Atlanta, I got a call from a friend at work. She'd been checking all the reptiles for water, and apparently my corn snake turned up dead. Sad, really, but if it was that unhealthy this early in the game, maybe it was for the best. We got a new corn snake in, though, a hatchling blood corn, who is now on hold for me.


Sorry about the poor quality, but I was using a camera phone.

The moving company manager came by this morning to do an estimate. He was really nice, and he told me that his company has moved 8 different generals in the past 6 years because of their reputation. I'm feeling much better about this move.

Life update

15 days until the movers come. I have not started packing anything, or even going through things to decide what goes and what stays, although this little voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me I should, don't wait until the last minute, you don't want to be going through your stuff after it's already moved, just take what important and leave the rest. I'm living in this strange mix of permanent and temporary. I still have things packed away in boxes in various closets because we don't have the space to unpack everything we have, but it all seems so solid, we've been here for a year and a half now and it feels like forever. I can barely remember what this place looked like when we moved in last February. Oddly enough, as solid as it seems, it has never really felt like home. I haven't had a "home" since I left my parents six years ago. Oh, living with Fletch came close, I actually had a house and a roommate I was comfortable with, but I haven't had the opportunity to put down new roots since I pulled the last ones up, and I don't know when I'm going to have the chance again. I don't even know how long we'll be staying in VA this time. The thing is, though, I don't know whether or not I would be comfortable settling down in one place and not moving again. I suppose as long as I was able to travel, it would be okay, but living the same life day after day gets monotonous so quickly. That's why I wasn't ready to leave VA the first time, hanging out with the guys in Arlington there was always something different happening, and it never got old. I miss them. I hope I can find a way to settle in to the next chapter in my life as well as I have in the past, because the sooner this one is over, the better.

Chris is still hanging in there. He's stressing over the amount of work he still has to do, apparently there are two change of commands this week so instead of spending quality time in his office he and the rest of his squadron have been practicing for those, but he's managing. Things have been a little strained around the house. I've started likening it to childbirth; right towards the end everything gets harder, your patience wears thin and all you want is for it to be over and done with. At least, that's what I've read. I've never had children, so I don't know if that's true or not. But we both realize the situation we're in, which makes it easier to get through the strain and say, "This is only temporary, we can get through it, and things will be better soon." Not that they're "bad" now, but we're both snappish and preoccupied, and we don't see much of each other, since I'm working nights. We get a break in a few days, though! We're going to Atlanta for the weekend to see the GRAB show. That's Gordon, Russo, Anastasio, Benevento for all you non-Duo and non-Phish people. Check out www.trey.com, www.mike-gordon.com, www.phish.com or www.organanddrums.com to find out more (this means you, Jimmy!). These guys are incredible!

All the pets are doing fine. One of my fish died a few days ago, but I'm not that upset about it. As long as Wilson (my betta) is okay, that's all I'm worried about.



One of my mice is pregnant again. This will be her third litter. The other two females are still too young, I think, or maybe they haven't started showing yet. Doesn't really matter to me, the pinkies are all going in the freezer for my corn snake. Who, by the way, started eating on his own! I finally got him to eat a brained pinky three days ago (yes, that means I squished its head, deal with it), and Jennifer gave him a not-brained pinky yesterday, which he grabbed onto with relish (dill, not bread-n-butter :P). I will definitely be taking him with me when we move. He's starting to show some orange around his head, I think he's going to turn out to be a standard coloration, which is fine with me. I'll share some pictures as soon as I get them.

Not counting my days off, I have eleven days of work left. Work is...work. I think I'm going to miss about half a dozen people from my job, but most of them are Myspace friends, so I won't be completely cut off! I don't really have anything to say about my job.

Still waiting on my financial aid. *sigh*

Israel and Lebanon just went to war. I am now trying frantically to learn 2.000 years of Middle Eastern history so I will understand not only what's happening, but why. My husband did a wonderful job of giving me the layman's version, but I still wonder where I've been for the past 24 years...do my parents know about any of this? If so, why didn't they teach me? Based on everything I know up to this point, I'm very pissed off at Israel right now.

That's all for now.

Baby Rodents

So, here's the thing. I've always known I wanted to own a snake. Since I already have rodents, I figured, why not breed my own food? I adopted two male rats from a coworker, and one of my girls (Cayla, my black) is nice and healthy. Unfortunately, when such a decision is made without proper planning, it will sometimes not go as planned.

Out of the three girl rats I have of breeding age (Mona is too old), only the one I wanted to breed did not get pregnant. My two hairless rats did instead! I was worried about Briea, she's my albino and small for her age, but not only did she deliver all by herself with no complications, she's now the proud mommy of twelve pinky rats! She started delivering on Monday right before I left for work. Baby started delivering last night when I got home from work, and she ended up with four. Small litter for rats, but she's doing fine. I'm going to let them keep these babies to raise, and once they're weaned I'll keep a male and two or three femailes to start a breeding colony. The others will go to work as feeders, and I will get credit towards more food (with six rats and two mice, they eat a lot). My pair of mice had a litter a few days ago, ten pinkies. I took one into work yesterday to see if my corn snake would eat it, but he's still too small for even pinky mice. We fed it to a tank full of cichlids instead. It wasn't pretty. I'm going to let them keep those ten, and after they are grown I'll start collecting pinkies to freeze and store. I'll have to see if I can get a good picture of the corn snake I'm watching at work. I can't bring him home until he starts eating on his own, which means no one else can have him either, and I've pretty much established preference on him. I hope.

I watched Briea give birth to one of her babies before I went to work yesterday. It's funny, I can view them with complete detatchment as a food source (I'm a reptile person at heart), but it's still awe-inspiring to witness a birth.

56 days

56 days. Every day it gets a little harder. I'm going to have to start packing soon, I'd hate to wait until the last minute again. Hell, half of this stuff I don't even want to take with me. I bought a 30 gallon tank and a stand last night. Now I"m just waiting on the corn snake I want to start eating on his own. He's a hatchling. Very cute. One of our customers has a three week old kitten she wants to get rid of when it's old enough. Black with a long tail, exactly the kind I want. I told her to call me at the end of July if she still had it. I also want a siamese, but I doubt I'll stumble across one for free like I did with this kitten. I'm not getting any more pet rats. They're adorable, but I'm not really a small animal kind of person. I love reptiles, always have. Moving's going to be a bitch, what with all the animals, and my plants. Oh, yeah, forgot about the fish. That's not a big deal, though. One betta and one feeder fish in a 2.5 gallon tank.

There's a knock at my door. Holy shit, Bonnaroo tickets are here! Two weeks from now, we'll be in Manchester, TN. No work, no worries for a whole weekend. I might even be able to find some decent weed, enough to last me until we move out of this hellhole. It'll be good to be around good vibes again, even if it is just for a few days. Andy's going to be there. I don't know who's coming with him, probably someone I know, but possibly not. This is shaping up to be a rockin' good time!

Addendum

Yes, they are rats. Baby is a hairless, and Briea is a hairless albino. She was my first. Cayla was meant as a friend for Briea, but they didn't get along very well. Baby I adopted from a customer who thought her 9-year old daughter could take care of her by herself. Yeah, right. My other three are Mona, a year-old white rat with a gray head and gray stripe down her back, adopted from a co-worker who's going to have a baby, and Sam and Ralph, black hooded white and black respectively. I adopted them from another co-worker who couldn't keep up with four rats, a ferret and a cockatiel. I also have two mice that I'm trying to breed, since I'm planning on getting a hatchling corn snake soon and I don't want to have to buy all its food. I would like to have pictures of all of them up eventually, but unfortunately I found out a camera phone takes horrible pictures and my regular film takes about a week and half, since I'm sending it off to Snapfish.com. More to come!

Baby Pictures :)

I finally got some good pictures of the girls, so I thought I'd share them.



Not a good picture of me, but a great one of them! That's Briea, Baby and Cayla, respectively.




I don't have any pictures of my adopted three yet, but I hope to get some good ones soon. It's so hard to get them to hold still!