Homegrown Thoughts

I don’t know what is wrong with me, but today I decided I want another pet.  Not just any pet…a Robo Hamster.  Never heard of a Robo Hamster?  I hadn’t either until we went to Petco to get some cat food.  Yes, food for the cats we’ve had for less than a year that live with the dog we’ve had for a couple years…apparently I feel the need to add to our menagerie every year or so.  And that’s not even mentioning the freshwater AND saltwater fish we have.

But back to the adorable Robo Hamster.  They were so cute!  So tiny.  Dainty little tails. LOVE THEM.  Here, see for yourself.

See?  Adorable!  And they were maybe 3 inches long.  I just wanted to put them in my pocket and bring them home.  They remind me of miniature chinchillas - another animal I’d love to have but know my husband would never go for.  They don’t have the chinchilla tail but other than that, they look similar to me.

I even went so far as to look at hamster cages, hamster food, hamster hideaways and…get this…there are hamster litter boxes!  Yes, hamsters can be litter trained.  Who knew?

Besides the obvious issues of existing pets, including cats who would see a hamster and think, “Mouse! Must eat!”, there is my little ‘no unneeded purchases’ pact.  And the “Are you crazy?” husband reaction, which I am sure I will get.  I also did some research and apparently these little critters are extremely fast so if they get away from you, you can plan on spending the rest of the day trying to get them caught again.  They are usually not thrilled with being held and it takes quite awhile to tame them.  Although they supposedly don’t bite often, I have seen several reports of biting.  Basically, not a great pet for people who like to hold their pets or don’t want to spend a lot of time taming them…I should cross it off my list right now.  But I still want one!  Or two, actually, because they are social and do better with a pal.  They are very active and fun to watch.

Somebody please bring me to my senses.  Or at least tell me a good kind of hamster to get that is also very cute. I had a teddy bear hamster when I was a kid, maybe I should see if anybody has those available.  Oh wait, I still haven’t cleared this with my dh.  And, seriously, I do NOT see that happening.  *sigh*  What gets into me, anyway?!?

Ok, so maybe I didn’t finish our story quite as quickly as I had planned. Better late than never, right?

So here is our portion of the weekend. As I mentioned before, we attended a tennis exhibition featuring Andy Roddick and Serena Williams.

Also playing were Sam Querrey and Ashley Harkleroad. This was the first time Roddick and Williams had played together and also the first time Andy had played in his native Omaha as a pro.

It was a fun evening once things got going. For some reason they were very late getting started so there was a lot of filler tom-foolery going on. Once they got their act together, the women were up first. They played each other and that was not very exciting. They were showing very little personality and less effort. However, when it was time for the men, it became very fun! Andy played to the crowd, interacting with cat-callers and bringing people from the stands down to play. In between the entertaining moments, the guys put on a good show of tennis. In contrast to the women, they seemed to be putting their all into their games and looked to be enjoying themselves a lot. The evening finished with Roddick and Williams playing doubles against Sam and Ashley. That was a very short match, but due to the late start the play still went rather late.

One funny thing that happened was that they had some Heisman Trophy-winning former Nebraska football players there along with a big deal former Nebraska football coach whose name escapes me at the moment. What can I say? Being from Iowa, we are not big fans of Nebraska. :-) Anyway, during some of the breaks, they would come out and toss some small footballs and t-shirts into the stands. Everybody was standing up and screaming with their hands in the air, hoping to catch something. My husband and I aren’t really stand up and scream people, so we remained seated and joked to each other about just holding our hands out in front of us and waiting for something to land in our laps. Amazingly, that’s exactly what happened! A football was thrown to our section and after bouncing off of several upraised hands it landed right in my husband’s lap. It was so funny! Everyone around us was astounded. What was even more amazing is that when my husband asked the people in front of us who threw it (we couldn’t see since they were standing up and blocking our view), they said Eric Crouch. The amazing thing about this is that my husband was having lunch with Crouch’s brother-in-law the following Tuesday - they work together in Des Moines. I forgot to ask my husband what his co-worker said about our experience, I’ll have to do that. I just thought it was funny how that happened. Of course now we have a Nebraska football in our house, which clashes horribly with all the Hawkeye items. I think we need to find a safe (hidden from sight) place to store that.

After the exhibition was over and we were leaving the Qwest Center, it had started to snow. We had been to the Old Market area for dinner beforehand and seen some of the Christmas lights and ice skating they have going on down there during the holidays. It was so pretty walking in the snow - but freezing!!! We were going to go back to the Mall (a park, not a shopping mall) and take some pictures, but it was so cold outside we were thinking maybe that wasn’t a great idea after all. As we were walking back to our hotel from the Qwest Center (just a couple of blocks away), I slipped on some ice that was hidden under the new snow and fell flat on my back. I sort of caught myself with my left arm, but I still hit the back of my head on the cement. Things started going kind of fuzzy and I sat up a bit holding onto my husband saying, “I don’t want to pass out, I don’t want to pass out…”. After awhile my head stopped swimming and I was able to get up and walk. Everybody else walking in the area was on the other side of the street and as far as I know, nobody even saw what happened. My pride is grateful for this! Anyway, that sealed the deal on going out to take pictures - I wasn’t setting foot on snow or ice voluntarily again.

We got back to the hotel and called my mother-in-law to see if she had any suggestions about my situation. I was a little concerned that I might have a concussion and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. However, I was lucid and not trying to fall asleep or anything, so we decided I would probably survive the night. :-) More than my head, my arm hurt. I had really hurt my wrist and the pain was shooting up to my elbow at times. Nothing seemed to be seriously hurt, it was probably just a sprain or something from my hand being bent back with force. 2 weeks later, I’m still having pain at times and it’s curtailed my weight training at the gym…but that’s better than a concussion!

We had a little bit more drama on our way home the next morning as the roads were snow and ice covered. We saw several cars in the ditches and one pickup truck slid across all the lanes on our side of the Interstate as it entered. It hit a guard rail where it stopped and the driver wasn’t hurt, but it did set our nerves on edge a bit. After about half an hour, we moved out of the snowy area and the rest of our trip home was on clear roads. We managed to get the dog picked up from where he was boarded with about half an hour to spare. And it was a good thing, too! He did NOT like being boarded and it would have been really bad if he would have had to spend another night there.

So, that’s pretty much it! We don’t do anything exciting very often, but when we do it’s usually a doozie. :-)

Actually, it wasn’t even the whole weekend, just Friday and Saturday. But it was packed with action and drama. I think I’ll have to write this in parts or it will be way too long!

Friday, my husband and I went to Omaha for a tennis exhibition. Andy Roddick and Serena Williams. More on that later.

We left the kids with their grandparents and they were later taken to their cousins’ house to spend the night. This is the first time I’ve really let go of my kids - had them traveling around without us and not being in control or at least knowing exactly where they were at any given moment. Their cousin who is almost 13 babysat them for part of the night while her parents were out. She was *so* excited! :-)

We tried calling that night to check on them, but the phone just rang and rang. That was odd since 1) they should have been there, and 2) they have an answering machine that should have picked up if they weren’t. I tried a couple of times but the same thing happened. I tried their cell phones, but there was no answer there, either. I finally wound up calling my mother-in-law, knowing that if something had happened she would most likely know about it. She hadn’t heard anything and suggested that maybe their electricity was out. I knew they would have called us if something was wrong so I decided to just give them a call in the morning and hopefully everything would be working again. I was surprisingly calm about this whole thing, when not long ago I would have been freaked out by it. I have changed so much in the last year or so!

Anyway, when I tried calling in the morning I figured out why we couldn’t reach them. I’d been calling the wrong number! That explains a lot, doesn’t it? My husband had the wrong number programmed into his cell phone. Oops! We’d been calling an eye doctor’s office and they did answer the phone in the morning. Apparently they aren’t open at 11:00 pm on Friday nights…and have no answering service, either. After getting the correct number from my mother-in-law, we found that everybody was fine. Which I knew, but it was good to have confirmation at that point.

So that’s how the kids’ portion of the whole thing went. Next post will be about our experiences. :-) I need to take a typing break first. I’ll explain why in that next post!

I just happened to look as I was signing in and it says I’ve made 99 entries at HSB, so I guess this will be #100. Wow, it seems like I blog so infrequently, how did I get that many posts? Apparently I don’t remember all the stuff I write. :-)

So, again, it has been awhile since I last posted. I tell ya, life has just gone crazy. Granted, some of it is due to choices I’ve made, but other things have been going on, too.

The kittens are getting big now, especially Chase. Cats just live for food, don’t they? They come running whenever they hear food, even if it isn’t theirs. They like to steal food from the dog. Of course, the dog steals their food, too. I’m about to start feeding them each others food to start with. We’re working on getting the basement in enough shape so we can let the cats go down there. It is mostly finished, but the playroom is down there with all the little toys that the boys leave out and that the cats like to ‘play’ with. We also have an office, exercise area, laundry room…lots of places for curious kitties to get into trouble. I think I’m going to give it another once over, then let them go and just deal with any issues as they come up. I can’t possibly think of everything they might get into. And, quite frankly, I want my 1st floor half bath back! Their litter box is in there and that is where they stay at night and when we are gone. It’s really stinking up the joint! So they are being evicted VERY soon. They can earn their keep by getting the spider population under control downstairs.

My husband was offered a permanent position at the place he’s been a ‘temporary consultant’ for. He’s been there for a few weeks and was hoping he’d be able to stay. They did approach him about a permanent situation and offered him the salary he wanted, so it’s a go! I can really tell how much I’ve changed over the last year or so. I wasn’t worried at all about him finding a new job when he left the last one. I really felt that he would be offered a job where he is now and even if he didn’t, that just meant there was something better in store. This job isn’t perfect, but I think he’ll enjoy it and we’ll be able to loosen the belt just a little bit now that we’ll have a bit more security in that area. If this had happened even a year ago, I probably would have totally freaked out. I’m in such a different (better!) place now.

(Sidenote: It’s really hard to type when there is a persistent cat wanting your attention.)

What else? Oh yes, I got a guitar! I’ve been wanting to learn to play for a long time now. I was trying to decide between violin and guitar and decided a guitar was just more practical. So after the place I ordered from didn’t send it and didn’t send it, I called and switched what I ordered and had it in less than 48 hours! So now I’m trying to callous up my tender little fingers and practicing pretty much every day. I think I have about 5 chords down fairly well and I can play a few songs. :-) Hey! Skip-to-my-Lou and Jingle Bells are songs!! I’m having fun with it - even though I did NOT need another ‘project’ taking up time in my life. Still working on that balance thing.

I think that’s about enough for this post. I have another one to write, but I’ll keep that separate.

I did want to share this little picture and story with you, though. I think it’s the cutest thing!

The picture alone is sweet enough, but the story is gooey, too. I’ll summarize, but you can see more of the story here, if you like. Basically, this little macaque monkey was abandoned by his mother and nursed back to health at an animal hospital. But he wasn’t very perky or happy. Then a fellow patient, a pigeon, became his friend and they’ve been inseparable ever since. Isn’t that cute?? I wonder how long it will last. Talk about an odd couple, but that picture just does something to me. (”No, Jodi, you may NOT add a monkey to your menagerie!”, says the inner voice of reason.)

Okay, I need to get my other entry posted so that’s it for now.

…to take pictures of my growing seeds. Well, the week wait wasn’t necessary as they started sprouting after only 2 days. The sunflowers grew very quickly and were soon too tall to keep the lid on the ‘greenhouse’ at all. I’ve planted many of the sunflowers and alyssum along with a couple of the lavender plants. The rest I left outside in the tray to adjust to the weather, etc. Much to my surprise, after only 2 days all of those plants not put into the ground have dried up and died! ACK! Now, I would be even more upset about this, but if you’ll recall, I did keep out 1/3 of the pots for use later in case something went wrong. Something went wrong, LOL. So I’m going to replant some lavender and violas at a minimum, since I lost most of those, and then decide if I want to start anything else from my seed packets inside. It worked so well, I was amazed! I think only one pot didn’t germinate at all and most of the others had several sprouts.

Now here is the bad news for the plants I transplanted into the ground. They haven’t dried out, but the bunnies have found them. We put the sunflowers in 2 different beds, and the rabbits have totally destroyed the ones in one bed. So far they don’t seem to have noticed the other bed, but I’m wondering how long that will last. So I think I need to go pick up some chicken wire or something to keep the little varmints out temporarily. I assume I can take any fencing down once the plants are strong enough to survive any bunny attacks. Does anybody have any other bunny deterrent ideas for me that won’t actually kill the little critters?

Note to my backyard rabbit population: I do love me some bunnies, but stay away from my plants!! There are plenty of delicious weeds out there for your dining pleasure and that was NOT a bunny salad bar that I was planting out there. I’m sure you think I was very considerate and kind to put the new delicacies out for you, but you entirely miss my intentions there. Stick to the dandelions and creeping charlie and I won’t evict you from under the back deck. Do we have a deal?