Do you have pictures of any wedding details you can share? I love hearing people’s wedding details 🙂

Not much is up with me. My mom is coming this Saturday to stay with us for a week. I’m so excited to show her my new house! Our goal is to paint all of the downstairs rooms, plus make some throw pillows (mostly just new covers for the pillows I have so I can switch things up) and curtains (she’s bringing her sewing machine). I’m also excited because it means a week off of work. Yay! I’ve avoided taking vacation days all year so I could use my days to work on the house, so it’s exciting to finally be taking that time (I think I still have something like 13 days, even after this mini-vacation, so I need to figure out what else I’m going to use them for).

This morning, I made my first ever successful smoothie – thanks to Food Network

Berry Smoothie
– 1 banana
-6 almonds (skin on)
-1 cup berries (I used a frozen berry mix of strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry)
-2 cups fresh, raw spinach
-1 cup cranberry juice (I used light)

You can also replace the berries with mango. The original recipe called for mango, but I’m not fond of so I replaced it with berries.

I added a bit of ice and I pureed it for a few seconds.
You can’t taste the spinach at all! When I opened the cover of the blender, I could smell it, but otherwise, I can’t even taste it!

I’m trying to get better, and I will begin to make some vegetarian recipes. My dad will be making tofu spaghetti soon  I want to be healthy, lean and strong

Edit: My dad, who doesn’t like many veggies – LOVES IT  He is even writing down the ingredients to buy more

Oh that looks good! I do so poorly with high sugar though. :/ BOO! My favorite is spinach (original recipe calls for 2 cups but I usually do more), banana, flax seeds, ice, and either plain soy milk or almond milk. Yum! They are expensive to make though. Just the spinach alone is ridiculously priced in Pullman and almond milk ain’t cheap either. Haha

Oh I also have to fight over that smoothie. V and Fievel will TRAMPLE me for just a taste. Haha

I really don’t mind fruit sugars. I don’t like candy sugar and all the processed sugars. I really enjoy it. I made too much, so I’m going to share the next portion with my dad. I can’t believe that he liked it! I read in a magazine that Americans do not get enough berries. My work sells berry medly mixes in the frozen section and I can get a small discount on the bag. Woot! To future smoothies and health

Tate, I’ll write down your recipe! I have a notebook that I am writing down recipes, along with vegetarian ones I am going to try soon. I just need to shop, but I hate going back into work (even as a customer) to do shopping >.> Eh… lol. I’ll do it this weekend

Yesterday, my dad bought the spinach for me. He found a marked down bag of spinach going for .99

I feel comfortably full and I love it

I’m counting down the days till I leave one department (I work in Labor and delivery as a secretary right now) to another (our ER but as a nurse). We are a woman’s hospital so we mainly deal with OB/GYN patients and also gyn oncology pts and breast cancer patients. It’s a very busy place about 10,000 births a year. Only 19 days to go. I’m a little sad, my department has really become a second family, been there 9yrs.

14 days till Arthur says so long to his “manhood.”. That’s making me even more nervous! But I am looking forward to the benefits of controlled hormones.

A lot of people are still without power. I offered for people to come shower and do laundry at my place but they’re sticking it out. My daughter is finally going to start school on the 6th though she was suppose to start on the 29th.

My little Squirrelly boy gets neutered on Tuesday 😮 My hubby has to drop him off as I start work at 7 am, but I get to pick up the little man. Hope he does okay!

Tate –Have you ever tried to make your own almond milk? I’ve found it cheaper and tastier.

The peeling is the worst part. Takes the longest and those buggers can really shoot out of their skin (getting hit in the head with flying almond ricochet sounds like more fun than it is &#160.

Fresh foods are pricey, but for almond milk you can get it online for under $2 a container if your stores are too pricey on the alternative milks. Here silk is about the same price as regular milk, so it’s not that bad. For extra protein you can add a little whey protein as well to smoothies, if you’re not vegan.

Good luck to Squirrel and Arthur on their neuters!

A good healthy and rather easy to make vegetarian dish is vegetable soup, Chacha, if you are looking for food as well as smoothies. You can make your own stock by caramelizing onions and then adding water and putting it into a stock pot, then just add whatever veggies you like. I can’t stand a lot of veggies, so I hide them in the soup and the flavors get so mixed up can’t taste them, so it’s ok to eat. I also mash up veggies into mashed potatoes to hide them, tastes like potato but has corn, green beans, broccoli, lima beans, etc all in it. I’m a VERY picky eater, so I am always finding ways to hide veggies I should be eating since I am a vegetarian. Smoothies are a great quick meal though.

Ripley- Thanks! I’m definitely going to do this because it’s used sooooo much in vegan cooking and it’s expensive!
Stickerbunny- I do buy somethings online but I try not to JUST because I’m afraid I’ll get the food and it’s leaking/dripping/spilling/whatever. Lol. I’ve found that almond milk makes all the difference as far as protein. I try not to overdo protein at all… I think it’s worse to get too much rather than too little and it’s surprisingly abundant if you’re eating the right things. The one thing that I do eat a few times a week is tofu. It’s awful but so good.

It is bad to get too much protein (which most americans get way too much of!) but if you’re having a smoothie say for breakfast, a little protein is good. What I want to try for protein is Tempeh, since it’s high in protein and I really don’t like a lot of protein rich foods (or, any actually, beyond nuts) and Tempeh is supposed to absorb flavors really well to fit into other dishes, but no one around me carries it. Could never get into tofu.
My boyfriend thinks protein is like the end all be all in nutrition, his way of dieting is taking those whey protein shake mixes from GNC and eating nothing else. I told him he was crazy to think that was healthy.

Oh I hadn’t even thought of tempeh! I don’t think I could find it here either. I can’t even get millet here and only sometimes can I get quinoa.
My boyfriend does dumb diets too. When he was doing track, he said he would try to eat 4,000-5,000 calories a day and most of it was in bread. Lol.

Am I the only one with a significant other who “diets” as an attempt to gain weight? Lol. I’m trying to get DH started on smoothies or something with whey powder because he complains all the time that he’s losing weight. He tries to lift a few times a week, which keeps his weight up, but if he stops lifting for two weeks he’s down 5lbs or something. Ridiculous. I tend to cook a few veggie meals per week, so maybe more protein would help him maintain muscles.

Those smoothies sound good! I’m not much of a fruit eater (loooove my veggies though) but sometimes I do think I should eat more of them. I’m just not into sweet things in general, so I think that’s the problem I have with fruit. I’ll eat a whole head of broccoli though 😀

Good luck on the neuters coming up!

Sticker, if all he is doing is drinking protein drinks it will not be good for his body I take in extra fiber so I am full throughout the day. I’m incorporating more veggies into my diet and I hope it helps

I’m not an organic person, but I do like all sorts of stuff. I’m slowly opening my mind to new things.

I work out a lot, so I eat a big breakfast. Eggs, cereal with blueberries. I don’t like being hungry all the time.

Its my Friday! Weeee!

It’s not just protein, it’s the whey protein shakes they sell, which has some other stuff in it, but not enough to be healthy. But he won’t listen lol I am a vegetarian and his idea of a meal is a plate of meat, meat with more meat, so needless to say we don’t agree at all when it comes to food. He didn’t stick with it very long the time he tried it while I was here, but he said he used to do it for months on end. I’m like “uh.. not healthy” and he was like “it’s like the dry survival rations, it has everything your body needs” … yeah to live, not to have a proper healthy balance lol but you know men, they don’t listen

Elrhohwen, my cousin diets to gain weight, or at least he used to. When he was younger (he’s near 40 now) his metabolism was so high he was always stick thin, even though he ate TONS of calories/fat. Like, would eat a box of donuts as a snack kind of metabolism. And my boyfriend when I was 16 would diet to gain weight. If you need to add protein to your veggie meals, try putting legumes or something into it – sometimes I add almond milk to dishes that don’t call for milk but it wouldn’t hurt the texture of. Or you could sprinkle some of the protein over a dish, or add it into a sauce. Or you could make a trail mix with high protein seeds/nuts in it for him to snack on throughout the day.

My best friend’s husband is like that. I think he probably eats 4000-5000 calories a day in order to weigh 160 lbs and he’s like 5’10”. When he went off for the summer to train with the marines he came back looking like a starving refugee he was so sickly skinny from eating normal human amounts of food. I think he must have lost at least 40 lbs.

I love almond milk and almonds generally. I have an excellent recipe for turkish style almond pudding, it’s not diet though. Well, I guess it could be if you’re using t ito replace like, cheesecake or brownies. I just tell myself it’s an excellent source of calcium and we all need strong bones!

Haha, Elrohwen – my boyfriend is the same way. He’s naturally stick skinny, and works out to keep his weight up; one semester when he was too busy to go to the gym often, he went from 150-138lbs at 5’11” even though he didn’t change his eating habits. Everybody is so jealous, me included!

I’ve been super busy, so I’ve felt really burnt out lately. I work three days at the restaurant, and three days at my internship, and I got hit with 3 different projects at the same time!! I mean I love what I’m doing and I’m definitely excited for all these projects, but I can feel my body getting so fatigued =[

plus, this month I’ll be reapplying to grad school, so there’s some more work o.O I figure this will all pay off soon though. I do have another legislative visit in sacramento scheduled in October that I’m very excited about! the buns are fine, and they always perk me up when I come home all grumpy =P

Another really good breakfast smoothie is one that Alton Brown did on Good Eats. My husband and I both love it an make it our breakfast on gym days. Really simple.

Pure acai juice
Soy milk
banana
peaches
strawberries
blueberries.

4 ounces of each ingredient per person. Use frozen fruits and just throw everything in the blender before bed. Refrigerate overnight and blend when you wake up. Super easy, super tasty and full of antioxidants, and vitamins.

What is new in my world… I just started working at Jo Ann fabrics. The managers seemed really impressed with me so far and just loaded me up with a ton of hours. That is good, since my husband is in school full time, we need the extra $$.

Dog agility training has gone well. I have really been working him a lot lately and at his last class he did 12 straight weaves for the first time. For a first time agility trainer, that is a huge accomplishment. Weaves have always been tricky for us. My dog mastered all of the other obstacles easily. So now we just need to clean up our handling techniques, and that is coming along well too. At least on days when he is not being a total butt-head.

Thanks for the suggestions, ladies! Glad to know he’s not the only one. My mom is visiting this week and we love cooking together, so I know she’ll be excited to make food for DH. My dad doesn’t eat much (he’s always trying to stay healthy and keep his high blood pressure in check – at this point I think he’s too skinny, but whatever) and my mom is always excited to make big meals again and have somebody like DH to eat them. Haha

Whenever I make something veggie I try to add protein – I have a “mexican lasagna” dish that has black beans, though DH always asks me to make it with chicken too. I also make a pasta often with tomatoes, hummus, and chickpeas (the hummus makes the tomato sauce creamier – it’s so good!) I’m more likely to add cut up chicken to something than to actually make big slabs of meat, so I wonder if he needs a supplement. A trail mix for a snack is a good idea – he’s always hungry at work.

DH is 6’1″ or so and currently down to 165lbs (some nights less if he’s just worked out) – I think he’d prefer 175lbs or even 180lbs if he could get up there.

Hannah’s a huge trouble maker lately. If someone’s not watching her she’s always testing the fences and trying to get behind the couch. This morning DH found her back in the speakers where she shouldn’t be and I’ve found her on the arm of the couch about to jump onto the end table. Lol. She was like this at our old house until she settled in and learned where she wasn’t allowed, so I hope she gets better in this house. Right now we can’t leave her alone for 10 minutes when she’s in an active mood.

Aw, she’s just exploring and seeing if the change means she can get away with more naughty stuff. Silly Hannah.

I woke up this morning to the baby gate being knocked half over in the kitchen, guess boyfriend knocked it over on his way to work. Stickers was out and running around the house without supervision. So far haven’t found anything damaged, thankfully!

Elroh, a general rule of thumb is 10%-12% of calories should come from protein. So about 3 grams of protein per 100 calories for the average male. “Average” is listed as 154lbs though, so increase that a little since he is heavier and taller than average. Chickpeas and black beans are both great though. Never thought of adding hummus to marinara… might try that.

The hummus recipe is so good! Here’s the link from Epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/f…oes-363654

I use fresh tomatoes like the recipe calls for, though you could defintely do it with regular marinara sauce (I’ll have to try that in the winter when tomatoes are out of season). The hummus makes it really good. I’m currently experimenting with different flavors of hummus – I really like roasted garlic and the lemon varities in this dish.

Hannah is silly. She likes to get into everything, but she learns fairly fast when you tell her no (and occasionally squirt her with the water bottle). At least she doesn’t seem to destroy anything or chew on cords, so even if she gets back there for a few seconds she doesn’t damage anything.

I’ll be making Vegetarian Enchilada Stew tonight, hahaha.
John doesn’t put on a lot of weight, but when he lifts weights, he bulks up a little bit. He doesn’t even eat much, and it makes me look bad o_O I need 3 meals a day or else I am cranky.

Joyfull Music- You work at Joanns? I love that place I am working 38 hours this week at my job, 31 the next. The fall tends to not have many hours, but as I am helping my dad out with the bills, I told my manager to call me in earlier She said “I WILL!”

LOL….You ladies and your recipes! I love smoothies, but have recently become allergic to almonds and can’t eat them at all anymore.
I happen to be posting from my birthday present. Hubby got me a brand new cell phone that browses, takes pix/videos, uses voice command, etc. I am drowning in tech right now. Darn thing scared heck out of me at first. I couldn’t figure it out till I began thinking of it like a tiny PC.
My son is extremely jealous. Already tried to bribe me out of it.

Good luck to our boy buns and their visits to the plums fairy!

Woohoo MM, good to hear you not just relying on the PC now. I have sept 4 in my mind as your BD…?? Am I way off? Regardless, HAVE A BINKY BIRTHDAY!!!
lol @ the plum fairy! I’ve been reading on RU and have adopted their fondness of the term “plums” also. ;o) haha!

LPT, I hope you’ll take a pic of the finished cross stitch to show us. You’re so talented. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to tackle something like that. It’s a wonderfully meaningful wedding gift.

That smoothie looks yummy. We’re just heading into our warmer seasons here so smoothies will go down a treat. When I was helping my aunt paint her house, she use to make me smoothies while I worked. They sustained me for ages because we didn’t stop for lunch til about 4-5pm. She did berry one but the one I really liked was banana and dates. Yum!

@Elrohwen, has your hubby ever tried to go wheat free? Sometimes it’s what you take out of the diet rather then what you add that makes all the difference.

@Kate Monster, this pudding sounds intriguing! lol Recipe pls?

Lol, my boyfriend just got me an espresso machine for my birthday. This was a dangerous plan for someone who loves espresso and has a very low caffeine tolerance. I might start doing binkies!

Almond Pudding (Keşkül)

(this is the recipe as written, I usually make half, it’s a lot of pudding)
1 3/4 almonds
5 1/2 cups whole milk, divided
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
3 tbs cornstarch
1 egg yolk, beaten
pinch of salt
ground pistachio nuts (optional)

1. Place almonds in a blender or food processor with 1 1/2 cups of milk. Grind them to make a smooth paste (about four minutes on a typical blender)
2. Turn out this misture into a medium size saucepan and add 3 1/2 cups milk, the sugar, and the cream. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring with a wooden spoon.
3. In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the remaining 1/2 cup milk to form a smooth paste.
4. Graduallly add cornstarch mixture to the boiling milk mixture
5. Lower the heat, simmer and stir frequently.
6. Carefully add about 1 cup of the hot almond milk to the beaten egg yolk, then pour this mixture back into the saucepan.
7. Add a pinch of salt
8. Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens.
9. Pour into individual serving dishes (or not, if you don’t care that it’s that pretty)
10. Let cool, then refrigerate for several hours to child the pudding (I usually make it in the morning and serve it at dinner or let it chill overnight)
11. Sprinkle with the ground pistachio nuts and serve.

Thanks!

It’s actually pretty good with just one egg yolk. I was expecting a lot more. I had a look at pictures of it before and it reminds me of rice custard/pudding but maybe with more texture? And a bit more ‘sophisticated’. Sounds yummy. That is 1 3/4 cups almonds right?

Yup 1 3/4 cups, sorry, haha it would hard to work out a 1 3/4 almonds wouldn’t it? It is very good, very rich and milky tasting. And personally I prefer a small serving of something that is higher in fat and sugars that tastes very natural over the sugar free, light puddings.

Jersey, I don’t think we could go wheat free! My diet is pretty high in carbs – any time I’ve tried to go low carb I end up caving and eating a whole loaf of bread. I know there are carb alternatives to wheat, but I don’t think they’re quite the same. We both love to eat and eat just about anything, so I can’t see cutting out a whole category of food unless it was really necessary.

Kate Monster, you are right. I dislike ‘sugar free’ things as they have more additives and processed stuff in them.

I agree – fake sugar is awful! I hate how aspertame just sticks to your tongue and you can taste the chemicals for an hour after eating it.

My mom’s visiting this week and wants to run to the grocery store to buy some of the things she eats regularly and splenda was on her list. Ick. I hope she takes it with her when she leaves!

Also fat free stuff. Don’t even get me started

Yeah, I just go for the real butter and sugar. Though I really don’t eat desserts, so it’s easy to limit my sugar intake (I really only use sugar in tea, or if I’m baking something which happens maybe once a month).

Yeah agreed! My cousin one put margarine on the garage floor (as an experiment) and no bugs went near it! HA! LOL!

I threw away all the fruit last night as I saw all the flies trampling it My dad wasn’t happy but I promised that I would buy some more. I had no idea my dad bought the pears so that he could put them in HIS smoothie I felt terrible. I’m going to buy replacement pears and put it in the fridge.

I had my smoothie and Kashi cereal for breakfast I had a really hard time getting out of bed. Speaking of that, I need to get dressed for work now Another 5 day work week, and after that, my hours turn back to near normal.

Wow its September already?
All those recipes sound so tasty! I made a really tasty chicken salad using chicken, light mayo, dill weed, black olives, red onion, salt and pepper. It was really good.
I, too, hate aspartame. I had a dr once tell me that when added to hot drinks, it mimics formaldehyde. I hate that a handful of my friends tell me that diet dr pepper is so much better tasting and better for you. I look at them with a blank stare. None of it is good for you, but why would you choose the item with worse chemical junk if you didnt have to?
Elrohwen, Huckleberry has been acting naughty too. Finally, last night, I spent the whole night cuddling with her, training her to tap the end of a stick (which she picked up very quickly) and then we started working on walking on her hind legs (she can get 2 steps in before she feels funny about it) and playing around. She is a much less destructive mood now… well until BF got home from his guys’ night, she then continued to eat the couch…. maybe he is the problem hahaha jk, she loves her daddy.

Aspartame is worse for you than sugar, there have been studies that show it increases the likelyhood of diabetes, and does not aid weight loss at all.

I am vegan and in the process of going completely gluten free… I’m hoping sometime next year I’ll be able to do a 90 day experiment and go 100% sugar free- not even fruits. My health has just taken such a turn for the worse, so I’m hoping that will jump start my body and then I’ll be able to slowly introduce things again. A life without sugar would be terrible. Now that I’m pretty much completely vegan, I do feel way better but there are some lasting things I need to take care of. In the last two years alone, I’ve developed allergies/sensitivities to dairy, gluten, some meats (I’ve done better on home grown meat but that’s not an option where I live now, hence the vegan-ism ), sugary things- even fruit… not to mention the environmental allergies that have popped up as well- grass stuff (not exactly sure WHAT it is, but I’m fine with hay!) and the newest one- SUN! I get hives the minute sunshine hits my body. Luckily, strong sunscreen totally prevents it, but I used to LIVE in the sun and never wore sunscreen!
I just got done with a bike ride- I burned 2500 calories! I’m excited to eat alllllll day. Hehe.

You need the vitamins and such from fruits and such. its processed sugar thats bad, not the natural sugars found in fruits. Being a vegan, you need all the help you can get with vitamins and minerals.

Sugars actually accentuate a lot of problems because so many things are totally dependent on them. It’s not a life time sugar free diet- it’s just a 90 day regime of eating foods that actually nourish the body rather than facilitate bacterial and yeast overgrowth. There are certain conditions which do require an extremely strict diet… I have whats basically a yeast overgrowth called candida that makes me feel terrible. Yeast needs sugar so by not eating sugar, the yeast should die. I’m working my way up to that by cutting out all of the crap- meat, dairy, gluten, etc- so that when I finally am able to go sugar free, it will be a fairly easy transition. There is really nothing in fruit that can’t be found in vegetables… even vitamin c. There’s only 50 mg/100 g of oranges, whereas there’s 190 mg/100 g in red peppers. Fruit is mainly sugar and water, unless you buy really good fruit. A lot of it is genetically modified at this point and it’s worthless. The university I’m at does a lot of research in this particular area. That being said, I will eat fruit after I”m done and I’m still eating it up until the point I start the diet. 
I’m considering eating meat once I do start the sugar free program, but only if it’s from a local source and is organic. I’m also doing this under consult of a doctor.  It’s a personaly decision and I don’t think everyone would benefit from this diet. 

Indeed, birds get candida as well and you can’t feed them ANY fruit, sugar, or carbs when they are being treated for it. Didn’t know humans got it though, sorry to hear you have to battle that. And fruits are bad for other things as well, my grandmother has to avoid fruits being a diabetic because they are actually what her doctor has her eat if her sugar drops – since the sugars are absorbed faster than processed sugars, it raises her glucose levels back to normal quicker. When she’s out she carries orange juice in her purse, not chocolate.

It’s tough! I’ve had it for a while but just never could bring myself to go on that strict of a diet. I hoping that this 90 day thing works and then I can start to just reintroduce things slowly and go from there! We’ll see..

Diet crap is disgusting. I can’t even look at it and I wonder why my customers keep buying it. The 0 calorie, 0 sugar thing doesn’t mean much. I like to have a nice soda every once in a while.

It makes me sad to hear some people that I’ve spoken to say that they are on a 500 calorie diet.. seriously? I don’t know how people can do that to themselves. I think of my body as a powerhouse. It needs food.

There was this lady in my line today. She was really talkative and I had a nice chat with her. I told her what I’ll be going to school for soon.. and that I really want to work with Women’s Health Issues. She handed me her business card. I told her I won’t be done with school until 2013, and she said to keep in touch with her. She works at the Franciscan Health System and is the manager of Women’s Health and Breast issues

Tate, so you are cutting out all and any types of sugar? 

Tate, do you take any supplements? I hope so, beign vegan makes it so you don’t get alot of stuff. And sugar gives you energy, not sure how you will do without it….

Yup, it’s an all or nothing kind of thing. It will be basically all veggies and, if I choose to do meat again for that period, steaks and chicken breasts and whatnot. I only like halibut as far as fish goes but hey, it’s something! I’m waiting a while to do it though… right now I have so much going on and even just being vegan has been a huge challenge for me as far as getting some calories in! I’m hoping next year, I’ll have a bit of a break and I can slow down my workouts and such. I do not want to pass out in the middle of the gym. Lol. I think it will be good though- I have been a serious candy junkie for years now and I’m hoping the other plus side of doing this little diet will be that those cravings will go away! I could put away 2,000 calories in candy a day no problem. Lol

I need to study for a mammology test. We will have like 25-30 skulls that we have to identify either by sex or species or both. It’s fun but I’m not feeling up to it right now!

Make sure to take vitamin supplements, B12 especially. B12 deficiencies from not eating meat can get scary otherwise.

ill go thru a gallon of crystal light every day in summer,, but the pizza place by us has 24″ pizzas… the perks of being an ADD child 25 years ago.

im running out the door to go biking now,, its almost down to 80 this morning…

Something they do for birds when they get candida is add apple cider vinegar to their water because the yeast can’t grow in such an acidic environment, might work for humans as well. But you could do something tastier with it, like make a ACV salad dressing.

Chacha, I know! I was at a Mexican restaurant the other day and a pack of 20 somethings were eating at the next booth – they were like “I might have some chips, I ate a bowl of cereal this morning so I am full” and the four of them ended up sharing a one-person fajita. I had my own vegetarian fajita and I can’t figure out how people aren’t starving when they go on such a heavy diet. lol I mean, if you exercise 500-800 calorie diets are WAY too little unless you’re naturally very tiny. But every one wants to be a size 0 even if they aren’t naturally that small. Personally, my hips are a size 5 and there is no way I can go under that and still be healthy and wouldn’t even try.

My grandmother drinks diet soda because she is diabetic, I have some when I stay with her, but otherwise I can’t stand artificial sweeteners. They have so many side effects anyway… after so many years of using sweet n low my grandmother developed migraines and a study came out linking it to migraines, so her doctor made her cut down on sweetener use. My boyfriend only drinks diet stuff, because he calls sugary drinks too fattening but he’ll eat half a large pizza and a burger for dinner with his diet soda. o.O

My work schedule has been really bad Thank goodness, only 2 more days of working at 10:15 am >_> It has been wrecking my work outs. I feel lazy and gross when I don’t work out.

I’m a size 9. I’m curvy but don’t look like it, hahha xD I got my mama’s hips. I’ve always been a 9 and I would like to maintain that, but I don’t do drastic things to myself I like having fruit on my break to fill up.

Did you guys know that Coca-Cola was invented by .. a pharmacist?

I WANNA GO THERE ! That is beautiful

WOW Longhairmike, where is that?

I cant do diets. I try, I cant, I lack the self-control. Instead, I eat when and what my body tells me it wants. If I am craving lasagna, I eat lasagna, if Im craving cereal, I eat cereal. I eat enough to feel satisfied but not so much that Im stuffed (unless I go out for Chinese, then I cant help it) but Ive always been thin and am only now beginning to see any weight accumulation. I think that was more from just not exercising. Since school started, I have been riding my back around roughly two to three miles a day, I havent lost weight but I can see a difference. I am craving healthier foods too, like right now, I really want some spinach.

This morning I was standing near the tv stand, which just happened to be where the almost empty bag of craisins were, Huckleberry came running out from nowhere and stood on her back feet and held the pose. I started to walk away and she stepped down, hopped in front of me and stood up again, this time she chattered her teeth and moved her head around like she was talking. I couldnt take the cuteness anymore and handed her two. She ate them and then did a little binky. I cracked up.

For me, it is about widening my food group. I don’t believe in dieting. I label read a lot. Like you said Huckle, if I want lasagna, GIMME THE LASAGNA!

I was talking with my boyfriend about excessive diets (500 Calorie ones, dieting on just protein bars) and he said eventually a person WILL waste away. He has taken many health and nutrition classes and basically, the body will eat its self if it is starved of nutrients. It is sad People want results quickly, but in reality, it isn’t healthy when drastic measures are taken. The body is an amazing thing and should not be abused like that

Anyways, I wanted to bite some heads off at work. I think everyone decided to go to the grocery store and bother cashiers and make their day hell. Oh man. lol.

I let Chacha wonder in my bedroom when I left for work My dad is off today, but he said she was sleeping in my room ALL DAY LONG. She STILL is. I would really like some Chacha bun kisses

yeah, crash diets are no good. it’ll last you a little bit, but then you’ll eventually cave in and binge and it’s just horrible for your body. or, you can get even worse and just stop eating in general. and TRUST ME, I have family members who’s digestive systems are permanently wrecked from eating disorders, no one wants to go down that path!

I’m a size 2-3, 25 inch waist, and I eat all day long hahaha. seriously.. I eat like five times a day, and if I’m craving a burger or chips, I’ll eat it. the key is to eat balanced meals with veggies, fruits, etc, and eating small portions to keep your metabolism going.

@Longhairmike I am always so jealous of your pictures!! I wish I could just go outside and have all this nature right there. sigh.

I’m going to upload a video on photobucket to share with you guys.. inspired by one of brittany’s videos of chacha stomping all over john’s head to get some craisins. let’s just say paul is a very silly boyfriend… lol

What are you talking about, Angela?? I’m always super jealous of my friends in the bay area, since they have ocean, mountains, and forests right there, not to mention Yosemite only a few hours away! There’s nothing here in Texas, haha.

Major frustration with Milo right now…silly boy is slowly losing his litter habits. Sigh. My floor is strewn in poopies and he peed on my futon earlier today…

Lol I feel like I constantly eat. I don’t measure calories, because I burn between 2,000-3,000 per day just in workouts. I’d imagine you burn an extra 500-1,000 just by doing day to day things as well. I just can’t eat anything I used to eat. I look at pasta and it makes me sick. :\ I will eat it occasionally at night because then it doesn’t bother me so much and I still do enjoy it! I’ve pretty much switched over to brown rice pasta and quinoa but it still just makes me feel… off. I’m still working on my sugar cravings… they are ridiculous! But for the most part, I crave veggies and some fruits. When I prepare the bunny salads, I usually have to make one for myself too because it all looks so good! I’ve found that once you really start to switch over to foods that fuel your body, anything else looks awful. I do miss my mac and cheese though. I could just eat that for dayyyyssss! I found a tofu based “cheese” sauce and it was actually pretty good but I’m trying to cut down on processed foods. -___-

AAAAGH! Work last night was horrible! Two of my previous supervisors decided to show up for the overnight shift last night. We have been horribly understaffed lately, so we are behind on our freight. We had 3 trucks of freight last night, plus one that had not even been unloaded yet… on the general merchandise side of the store alone! So that doesnt include the trucks for grocery, meat and produce, and dairy and frozen. We had a ton of work to do, so a lot of the day shifters decided to pick up some extra hours and come in overnight to show us how its done. The whole attitude over the store was so bitter. One of the old supervisors had at one point decided to be a huge jerk to me personally. He started putting notes on my boyfriend’s car that were supposedly from girls with phone numbers on them. I know it was him because my neighbor described his car, him and a girl with him that had been an old coworker. He spent months trying to get me fired by starting fights with me and then when I would react, he would send me to the office for it. Overall, it was a horrible experience. So, to see him again on overnights was just awful. But back to the attitude, the night people were all annoyed because the day people kept saying “We are here to show you how to do your job” and since they were annoyed, they didnt work very efficiently. The supervisor that was such a jerk to me, he kept telling everyone that we would be fired if we left before everything was done. Fortunately, we have had store policy drilled into our heads and we all knew that that was against the policy and we are able to leave at our scheduled shift end. It was just annoying that he felt that he had that much power.
I just needed to vent all that, thanks for listening/reading…. You guys have probably all been there, a bad day at work just ruins the whole day.
I am trying to salvage it by watching Huckles race around the living room, eating some tamales, and drinking some Coronas (yep, beer at 7am lol)

OMG Huckles! WHAT! I was in awe reading your post!! I hate how people think workers are machines.. one time at my old job, the company hired people to stock the shelves (employees did stocking and register)… If you guys don’t like the way that we stock, why not train us how to properly instead of bringing in people? Talk about passive aggressive as its best -____- ;;

*hugs* I’m glad that you are relaxing with Huckles and having a beer

I have to work again at 10 am.. *grumble* tomorrow is 12, and the next day is 3:30 (THANK GOODNESS). I’m used to working afternoons. I usually get a lot done at home when I do.. but the hours have been nice (but I’m tired). *yawnnnnn*

At my job I start at 7 am 10am.. I wish! lol

Hahahah! When I get a job in the medical field, I don’t mind having to start early. I will be doing what I want, so… I don’t mind it at all Getting in my workouts will need to be adjusted, but that will be no problem

My dad is making lasagna, and I bought a salad from work

I didn’t mind college starting early, but I can’t stand waking up early for work. I think it’s because I have hated all my jobs thus far lol doesn’t help that my bosses have been pretty much jerks. My last job the boss called the staff lazy kids and when I quit put a rule that the person they hired had to be older and have children. Why? Because handling 200+ customers, stocking, grabbing stock from the warehouse, doing the register, closing out the register and cleaning the entire store alone I could not keep it perfect. The other two employees (manager and her boyfriend) would take off whenever they felt like it (on the clock and come back just to clock out), but it was somehow my fault for not keeping up. o.O

So, yeah can relate sorry your day was so awful Huckles – but at least the bunny is there to be cute and cheer you up

O.M.G REALLY STICKER?!?!? UGH!!!!!!!!!!

I work for a union grocery store and I really like it. There are a lot of regulations, but I ask my person in charge a lot of questions to make sure that it is okay to do certain stuff (override certain coupons, etc).

Of course, when a person is overworked, they can’t do their best. They need rest and damned more employees that work hard and pull their own load so that that others don’t get overwhelmed.

I’m off this coming Saturday. So after work on Friday, I’m going to buy some popsicles.. it is expected to be 90 degrees on Saturday *faints* I have to keep myself and Chacha full. Her highness said that she would HELP me clean up the living room.. *whistles* I think she is lying.

How is everyone’s bunnies?

I’m a total night owl and absolutely hate getting up in the morning – to me, anything before 9am is an ungodly hour to be awake, and ~11am is preferable. Good thing my school video-streams all the lectures, so I just “attend” my morning lectures from my apartment in the afternoon, hehe. Over the past week or so, my schedule has slowly shifted to sleeping at 5am and waking up at 1pm..soo bad!  But for some reason, I tend to be more distracted during the day but always get a really good 4-5 hours of studying done past midnight.  Of course I’ll get up if I need to…not looking forward to surgery rotations at 4am in a couple of years .

Surgery rotations at 4 am? EWw. Does that mean no sleep at all?

A majority of my classes will be online, but I go to the school twice a week for hands on clinical stuff. It will be from Spring to Winter Quarter and I will likely request for those days off from work XD Oh, I look forward to going to work with bandaids on my arms..

Haha, ChaCha – it was around 88 degrees today and everybody was outside because the weather was soooo amazing! Compared to the 100+ it’s been the past few months that is .

Peppy has been her usual self, my sweet bunny girl. Milo however…he’s lost a ton of weight recently, not to mention his deteriorating litter habits…gonna take him in to the vet sometime this week . I’ve been free-feeding Milo unlimited pellets in the cage while making Peppy use the treat ball…today she tried to break *into* the cage (as opposed to out, like she usually does) and thumped at me when she realized that her husbun was getting a free meal!

OMG! Peppy is so naughty XD *laughing*

Oh no I hope Milo boy is okay Let us know how the exam goes.

Olivia likes to dance from your reports. Need to see this. LPT, are you having a gift registry for your wedding?.. Do you think it’d be too cheeky too put video camera on there? lol

Sending some {{{vibes}}} for Milo!

Awww, that is cute LPT

Hope Milo is OK! Let us know what the vet says.

Chacha, yeah, it wasn’t very fun lol they kept trying to cancel my days off too and I had to work every single weekend because the other two employees “need to watch football together on Sunday, so can’t take a Sunday shift” (which is open to close, no breaks, alone the whole day) o.O

My bunnies are OK – Powder woke me up this morning chewing on … looked like nothing. His teeth haven’t been bothering him at all and he was JUST at the vet last month, but I think I might get him a checkup soon anyway if he does that again, was pretty loud grinding. He eats his hay like a mad bun though (prefers it over pellets) so hopefully he doesn’t have an overgrowth.

Powder broke Stickers out of her rooms yesterday (he pushed the baby gate over) and they were getting along, so I let her run around. There was a little chasing, Powder wanted to mount her but she was having none of that and is so much faster than he is. Ended up crawling under something and laying down together for a nap. I guess Powder isn’t very territorial lol

Wow.. that is really messed up >_< I had to work all labor day weekend! It is darn sunny here and I'm not complaining. I have a job haha.

That is great that Powder prefers hay over pellets! I swear, if I kept the lid open to the pellets, Chacha would eat it all and have a stomach ache! She head binkies for her pellets and my dad thinks it is the most adorable thing he has ever seen hahaha

I let Chacha sleep in my bedroom last night. Twice during the night, I felt a little critter moving around on my bed, so I turned on my side. She was sitting there, waiting for me to pet her. Dawwwww! I have one of her small fuzzy condos on the side of my bed so that she can jump onto that, and get onto my bed

I’m going to try out a kale and fruit smoothie tomorrow : )

I hate being up early. Partly due to preference, but mostly due to insomnia. When you don’t fall asleep until 3 or later in the morning, anything before 10 or 11 is almost un-doable for me.

My dad just got a job offer for a liquor store owned by one of the biggest casinos in WA !!!!!!!

He is going to take it if full time is offered! The manager of the store came in to buy some liquor and saw my dad and the manager was impressed with his work.. so, he told my dad to come in on Thursday and apply personally in store

My dad has heard from other people that stores owned by tribal pay better and have better benefits!!! If the liquor initative passes this year, stores owned by tribal aren’t touched

Chacha, that is awesome about your dad! Congrats to him!!!!

Poor Milo, I hope he is ok….

LPT, that is TOO funny. I want to see videos of Olivia dancing.

The Hucklebun is doing fine. I hate leaving her locked in her room all day so while BF and I are studying, I decided to put a board up across the bedroom doorway so that she can still run around but she stays out of the bedroom and I know when she is getting into things she shouldn’t. She keeps popping her head up, so I can see her ears and nose poke just barely above the board and then she digs at it. She loves being under the bed but once she is under there, I have to pretend Im in that scene from Lilo and Stitch where the older sister climbs on the dryer to wait for Lilo, I have to get on the bed and wait for her to come out to chew on our clothes and then chase her out. She has been drag racing today, she is dropping her butt a little lower to the ground, pushing out her chest, sticking her ears right up and running super fast. She doesn’t extend her body or anything when she does it, which is why it reminds me of drag racing I suppose. She ate ANOTHER laptop cord (you would think I would learn) so I am waiting for a replacement. I rearranged my art studio and she has been having a fit about it. I cant have her eating my artwork anymore though!!! She keeps throwing things around in there and digging at stuff and perching in areas where she thinks she might have a good shot at jumping to my desk. Thankfully, she has chosen not to try it yet.

I went to the store in between classes today and peppers were BUY 1 GET 1 FREE! I got 8 of them… haha. Peppers are always ridiculously expensive here… like $3 each. I ended up going overboard and got like 20 different kinds of veggies. Pretty sure there’s about 15 of them in my salad and all 20 in the bunny salads (eeewwww cucumber!).

he is thinking about it. the manager said the salary is negotiable and guarantees him 40 hours.

i rang up an organic red bell pepper yesterday and the customer AND myself were SHOCKED. $4.30. FOR AN ORGANIC RED BELL PEPPER. he said “IT BETTER BE GOOD!” and we laughed.

I’m off today (thank goodness) and went to work out and pushed myself a little I bought some kale last night and added that to my smoothie. It was super yummies. i love kale, but chacha doesn’t share the same view on that.

I’m off to do some bunny cleaning. She makes her hay so messy!!!!

WOW $3-4 for ONE pepper? I’d die, I love those things. We get them for $1 a pepper, or sometimes they’ll have a package of 3 for $2. Not organic though, our store doesn’t carry organic

Glad your dad was offered a job, hope it works out.

depending on the season/week, the prices of red and yellow bell peppers are $1.25-1.79. the green bell peppers tend to be cheaper. right now, it is less than a dollar. i normally see it at $1.25 or so.

romaine, green leaf, red leaf, and butter lettuce is .88 this week i was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy! i usually just buy 2 heads of romaine a week, but since it is on sale, i picked up 2 heads of romaine and a head of red leaf. i give chacha a few red leafs and i use it for sandwiches. is butter lettuce okay to give to rabbits?

okay, now i’m really off to go clean.. I’m super lazy today

BUMPING up!

What is everyone doing this weekend?

I have a rare Saturday day off, so I’m going to take advantage of that by going to the local Farmer’s Market

Volunteering at the RA Outreach today Tomorrow I have a class to learn metal stamping stuff for jewelry.

Staying at home mostly, have to pick up more hay, just got Civ V ($30 for two copies, woohoo for 75% off sales) so bf and I are probably going to play that on LAN for a while. Have to clip the bun nails too. So lots of groveling and begging for forgiveness is in store this weekend as well.

Just got done with a workout… it was only an hour and half and I’m sooo sleepy. I have such a hard time eating in the morning.
I have some school stuff to do this weekend. It shouldn’t be too bad, I just have to actually do it! lol.
The bunnies are being turds. Velvateen’s sore hocks came back! I’ve been putting Neosporin on it 3x daily but it just isn’t do the job. I’ve bumped it up to New Skin. He’s such a little trooper… he never tries to wash off anything I put on him.
I thought Fievel had a belly ache because he was in loaf position. He never loafs… he’s ALWAYS flopped with his feet stretched out behind him. I gave him some simethicone, and he perked right up. Maybe he’s just being a little weirdo today.
I couldn’t get Velvateen back in his cage last night so he ended up be out allll night. He’s a very happy bunny. Lol.
It’s HOT! Gonna be 95 degrees today!

Thanks for the well wishes everybody…Milo is going to the vet on Tuesday morning so I’ll post an update of that later this week.

I have an exam on Monday…even though it’s only been two weeks since my last one in the same class. And in those two weeks, we’ve managed to cover 268 pages of lecture notes, all of which I have to memorize in the next 2 days. Ugggghhh. My brain is going to explode before I graduate.

Caught this picture of my silly Peppy girl a few days ago…the ball had rolled out of her reach, so the logical thing to do was to stretch out to get it, right?

at 2pm now,, it looks like the temp is topping out only around 98,, our first sub-100 day of summer.
it was nice in the low 70s this morning so i headed out exploring at south mountain from 6-9am,, solo,, with no map,, as usual.
those trails will eat you alive no matter what your skill level.

Those are beautiful views, Mike. With winter coming on here, I almost wish I I lived in the desert now.
My husband’s father has lived in Las Vegas for a number of years, but he used to live in Pahrump,NV. Your scenery reminds me a bit of there…minus the lovely cacti.
I’m taking a good chunk out of my Saturday finishing paying my tax extensions. ALWAYS fun…NOT!!
Anyone doing anything special to commemorate Sunday?

Peppy, that tube looks so tiny! I just got Chacha’s pink treat ball in the mail I’ve begun to put her pellets in there so she can roll it around for exercise. She REALLY is lazy otherwise.

I forgot to grab some popsicles.. ugh.

Mimz – I don’t have any plans, except that I have to work. My work is allowing workers to wear patriotic color shirts. I don’t own nice shirts like that – I’m a boring white t-shirt person hahahah

hey now, white t-shirts aren’t always boring…

Brittany – Yea, of all the ways she could have reached for the ball, she decided to squeeze through that tiny tube…silly girl.

longhairmike – Haha, I’ll take Brittany’s t-shirt comment to mean that she only wears the “boring” kind of white t-shirt, not that white t-shirts are boring…alternative parsing!

Ooookay, I think I followed that. Lolz….
Argh… Okay, so I’m not doing taxes so much. We finally got wireless at my house and I’m trying with little luck to sync up my NDSi to play Pokemon White online…
I’m such a nerd… >_<

I third that one.

I’m waiting for Chacha’s CottonTail Cottage to come in the mail. She is going to have a blast with that.

I started working at Jo-Ann fabrics last week, and they really put me through the wringer. I am off until Monday after working several hellish closing shifts in a row. But on Sundays I volunteer for an organization called Leader Dogs For The Blind as a dog walker. So after all that work, 3 hours of getting pulled around by 80lb puppies. But I love it.

What time is closing? My job closes at 11. I’ve only got about 23 hours this coming week, and it is back to 30 the following. Sometimes it is nice to have short shifts inbetween long days. Gives me time to breathe..

The store closes at 9, but it is not uncommon to have people there until nearly midnight putting things away and fixing up the store. Ours is a huuuge, high volume store, and it is usually up to a small hand full of people to do a butt-load of work. Not to mention I am still learning how to do everything, and it takes me forever still to figure out where stuff belongs.

Hey everyone! Sorry I’ve been MIA this week – my mom visited for the whole week and we painted the first floor of the house and made some pillows for the couches. I’m exhausted and really not looking forward to work tomorrow. We spent 4.5 days painting, often until 9 or 10 at night, and it was a ton of work. I’m so glad we’re done and the place looks fantastic! I haven’t taken pictures yet because some things are still cluttered (my mom brought boxes full of books that I need to organize) but I’ll get to that this week. The library is a medium-dark grey which looks great with the white molding and big windows. The dining room/bunny room is the same grey, but lightened with white paint, above the chair rail and plain white below (I want to do some kind of wainscoting on the bottom). The bunnies have a very fancy room now! The living room is a greyish blue, similar to what we had in the old house and it’s so calming compared to that awful yellow that was in there (we also painted the moldings white in there and it took about 6 coats – not fun!) My favorite is the kitchen – it’s green, sort of a muted khaki shade in most lights.

Yesterday we were supposed to go to a wedding, but never made it 🙁 It should’ve taken us 4 hours to get there, but we left 5 because we knew there were some road closures due to flooding and things. After 6+ hours in the car, taking tiny dirt roads through the country, we realized we were never going to get there at a reasonable time and we’d already missed the ceremony, so we just went home 🙁 It was such a bummer and a waste of 8 hours in the car. Some of the flooding in central NY was really horrible and I saw a Home Depot completely under water halfway up the doors.

The bunnies are good. Hannah learned how to climb the stairs last night, so now we have to block them off. I suggested we close the bedroom doors and just let her go up there (she’ll probably get bored eventually if she can only run up and down the hall, but it would be fun for her), but DH doesn’t want her up there getting in trouble. I’ll see if I can convince him though because she needs the exercise and she’s always such a good girl even when she gets into places she’s not supposed to be.

The neighbors came by to introduce themselves yesterday and brought us a mum, so that was nice. The two kids are adorable and we invited them in to see the bunnies. The buns were good sports – Otto avoided them by staying in his cage, but he just ate hay and didn’t seem too stressed out. Hannah ran away and hid from them, but also came running any time they had treats for her, so it was cute. I’m glad the bunnies were good sports.

Mike, those pictures are fantastic!! I can’t even imagine riding a bike through terrain like that (I’m a horrible mountain biker, so I stick to the roads) but seeing your pics I really wish I could do it just for the views.

Brit, congrats on your dad’s possible new job!

Sorry to hear about everybody’s struggles at work. I’m not looking forward to going back tomorrow – I’ll have a lot of emails to get through, though I did log on almost every day this week and check for urgent things so it shouldn’t be that bad. I just wish I had some more days to sleep in since I spent the whole week getting up early and working on the house.

Oh, something else I forgot to mention. DH’s boss, who is also a good friend, emailed us about an available baby rabbit his neighbor has. Apparently a different neighbor released some rabbits into the wild (what a horrible person) and one had babies. It seems that she died during the heat wave this summer and the other neighbor found her young kits and took them in. I think they were only a week or so old at the time, so it’s amazing that these people took the babies in and rehabbed them. They’ve given most away, but still have one remaining. I know we can’t take another right now, but if they really need to get rid of it and can’t find anyone, I’d be open to fostering. We have a big house and the baby bun could have a room upstairs far away from Hannah and Otto. I’m currently looking for local rescues because I don’t want to foster unless I have a rescue contact to adopt the bunny out and get it fixed. I guess I feel like it would have a better chance at a good home if I could get it spayed or neutered first, instead of these neighbors giving it away to the first person with kids who want a bunny (they must be good people for taking the babies in, but I guess I’m assuming they don’t have much bunny knowledge).

Everyone sounds so busy xD

I work from 12 to 5 today. Nice short shift. My dad is making turkey tacos for dinner.

Elrowhen, keep us updated on the bunny. That is a smart idea to find a shelter first and to let them know that you are fostering.

Joyfull – like return items and such, right? I did that at my old job quite a bit. It was a small store, but still such a pain! The Joann’s fabric near me is big! I have to go back soon to find more cardstock paper for Chacha’s scrapbook.

I’m trying to look for quotes for the scrapbook –____– I don’t want to make it sound really bad, but I’m looking for quotes along the line of “When one life leaves this earth, another is born,” type of thing. I want to put a teal ribbon on the bottom to honor my mother.

Return items, things people bring to the register and decide not to purchase. A lot of things people just put down in a random spot because they don’t want it. Trust me folks, it is not a problem to take something to the cashier and tell them you do not want it. We prefer it that way. I can not tell you how aggravating it is to go hunting down misplaced items at the end of every night. By handing it to an employee, you are literally saving us a ton of work. Heck I am the type of shopper that will put an item back in it’s spot myself if I don’t want it. I have a friend who just leaves things on any random store shelf when she does not want it. I have gotten on her butt about it many times. I have even taken it and put it back in it’s place for her and she still does it. GAAAAAHHHHH!

The really big one at Jo-Anns is the fabric. Every single bolt of fabric, ribbon, trim, elastic, velcro, ect, ect, ect, that comes up to the cutting counter throughout the day needs to be put away at the end of the night. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Ideally someone should be putting stuff away throughout the store hours when we are not too busy. But from September all the way through January I am told that the store is going to be constantly busy. I got hired in right at the start of it, and they tell me it is only going to get busier.

OH YEAH!! I CAN RELATE to you Joyfull!!

People always feel bad and apologize for not wanting items and I say “No, its perfectly fine!” I put it behind me as parcels (courtesy clerks) come by and pick up return items. It doesn’t bother me as much as people think.

One thing I wish people would realize is, just because it is a coupon, doesnt meant that it will work! I tell people to carefully read coupons and ask questions. I get it all the time “Coupon does not match” because people don’t even read the coupon or get the correct item. It makes me have to call grocery and ask for them to bring up the correct item *face palm*

Other cashiers have already warned me about Christmas time. How customers will line up at check stand 1 and end up in checkstand 5. YES it is that crazy, they say o_O

So glad I don’t have a job atm lol I can’t stand holidays in a retail store! Crowds and me don’t get along. Hope you guys don’t have too many annoying customers in the following months.

I went shopping today for bunny things ! Got some oxbow pellets (yay store finally started stocking them, but only 5lb bag, $12.99 o.O) and hay. And the grocery store had some VERY fresh romaine from the local farms, only $1.19 for an entire head that filled up two whole largeish plastic containers. They also had bell peppers for only $0.49 and spinach for a little over a dollar, they didn’t have a price tag for it but total only came out to $7 even with boyfriends lipton iced teas, yay for seasonal veggies. I put some of the oxbow pellets in Stickers bowl and she was literally licking it clean, I think she likes it. Powder was more interested in the lettuce. And… he broke her out of her enclosure AGAIN, so I have to clean the carpets. That boy can knock over a baby gate no matter what I do – I have a heavy suitcase (weighs more than he does) and a box (weighs about as much as he does) against the thing and he still was able to push them enough to knock it down. Sheesh. Luckily they don’t fight, just have poop wars on my carpet

yeah, the fred meyer’s here gets stupid busy, i only go there if i have to

My lower back has been hurting, so one of my coworkers offered to give me her back belt. She said it has helped her in the past I hate how bad the registers are my at work. You have to pull items forward -_-.. I stretch like a maniac in between customers and it helps a little. I want to have something now before it gets worse. So I’m thankful for my coworker.

I’m going to put some heat on my back and I wish John was here to give me a back massage. I’d fall asleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……..

Hahahahah Monkey, yes FM is really busy. Especially on Friday, and on weekends.

Posted By LoveChaCha on 09/11/2011 06:38 PM

Other cashiers have already warned me about Christmas time. How customers will line up at check stand 1 and end up in checkstand 5. YES it is that crazy, they say o_O

This just made me SO excited for Christmas shopping! I don’t know if I’ll actually go home for Christmas.. I really want to but my brother’s beh-beh is do on Christmas day so I think my parents will be ready to fly out at a moments notice. 

I’m sleeeepy. No more school! *thump*  I’m only going in to my fourth week… 12 weeks left to go before the end of the semester! It’s so hot here. I went on a bike ride today through a canyon and it was like 95 degrees. I wish I could take endless supplies of water and Nuun. I went through 3 bottles soooo quickly! 

get a camelbak,, they make them up to 100oz.

Do you guys check for wildfire situations before you head out on rides? Last week, some atheletes here got trapped in the Kimberley gorges when a fire swept thru. They survived but it was pretty horrible.

LongHairMike- I know! I really need to but never got around to it. I should look on Amazon today..
Jersey- I don’t mountain bike, I just stay on the roads, so no danger to me. We don’t have any mountains where I am, just wheat fields.

Some people on the rabbit page on facebook.

Someone said they are offended by my comment. The person asked a question about a ‘home remedy’ for mites and she said that she didn’t want to dish out $$$$$ for treatment. I said “It is our responsbility to take our rabbits to the vet. Their care is a lot more expensive than a dog or cat and I hope that you know that.”

She says that she was a little offended by my comment and she doesn’t believe in Pharmacutical (sp?) companies and how they make so much money and thinks that she could go into the natural direction. She also said she dished out $150 for her rabbits cold (RABBITS DON’T GET COLDS) last time. get over it. *shaking my head*

UH.. OKAY.

*face palm*

#rantover

In other grocery news, my new town has an A&P, which is nice, but charges $2 per lb for lettuce (my old store only charged $1.50 per head). However, there is a local place across the street that is sort of an Asian grocery (lots of Asian packaged food, sushi, etc) but also has all of the typical produce (and a wide variety of Mexican packaged foods? I don’t understand it either). They had huge heads of romaine for only $0.89 a lb the other day. Yay! Our bunny food budget each week should be cut in half if we can get motivated to shop at two different stores (which are across the street from each other, so not that much work).

Oh yeah, I’ve noticed that at Asian grocers, produce tends to be cheaper! like cilantro was 3/.99 at this huge japanese grocery store I go to everynow and then.

Yeah! They had lemons 3/$0.99. How are they getting this stuff so cheap?

I’ve heard that they also have really good fresh fish for sale, but every time I’ve been it’s after they’ve taken down the fish display for the evening.

I think all the fish sells during the morning hehehe

I’m not so sure myself but I really like seeing nice produce for cheap.

I got Barilla Plus pasta the other day and just cooked it tonight to see how it is – doesn’t taste much different than regular pasta, was way less work (didn’t stick together at all, even after sitting for a minute in the strainer). It’s made from grain and legume flour and has 17g of protein per 100g of pasta. It’s not bad. Boyfriend didn’t even notice it wasn’t normal old wheat based pasta. lol

Elroh, my guess is a local farmer our local stuff is pretty cheap too, parsley at HUGE bunches for $0.99, lettuce in HUGE heads for $1.19, really really cheap tomatoes and spinach for only a little over a dollar! Have two stores that stock locally nearby here. They grow fruit too, but they use it for preserves so don’t sell much.

Posted By Elrohwen on 09/12/2011 01:17 PM
In other grocery news, my new town has an A&P, which is nice, but charges $2 per lb for lettuce (my old store only charged $1.50 per head). However, there is a local place across the street that is sort of an Asian grocery (lots of Asian packaged food, sushi, etc) but also has all of the typical produce (and a wide variety of Mexican packaged foods? I don’t understand it either). They had huge heads of romaine for only $0.89 a lb the other day. Yay! Our bunny food budget each week should be cut in half if we can get motivated to shop at two different stores (which are across the street from each other, so not that much work).

haha I know what you mean! there’s a good amount of Korean and Chinese markets in east oakland, and along with all the Asian goods they also carry canned Mexican foods and tortillas… my guess [in Oakland anyway] is that recent immigrants [Latinos and Asians] tend to relocate in the same neighborhood. East Oakland is run down, but has cheap housing and major bus lines and stuff go through it, so it’s a good place to settle. works out for me, I can get my kimchi and tortillas in one trip produce is super affordable at the Asian markets too, I never understood why..

Hey you guys, my parents got another cat! >.<
A little gray tabby kitten wandered up to my mother Saturday morning. Mom told me to go door-to-door looking for an owner, but we couldn’t find one, so Mom has adopted her. She has worms and mites, but she is cuuute. Mom’s calling her Smokey because of the fires and it was really smoky out when she appeared. Normally Mom would have tried to get someone else to take her in, but what with all the wildfires in their county over a thousand homes have been lost and the animal shelter is full of displaced pets, so no one will be looking for a cat for quite some time. =( I think my Dad really likes her, though. He won’t stop texting me pictures! XD

OMG A&P still exist?!?! My home town had one years and years ago. Then they got bought out by Farmer Jack, who got bought out by Kroger a few years ago. There are quite a few Asian stores around me. I never though to check them out for produce though. My husband and I frequent this nearby place that is a Japanese grocery store with a full sushi bar in the back. We usually just bee line for the sushi and get out, that place is always sooooo busy.

Yep, A&P’s still exist! I’ve seen a number of them in northern Jersey and in western Connecticut, but this is the first I’ve seen in NY. I really wish it was a Wegman’s, but I’ll take what I can get. It’s mostly better than my old Stop & Shop in CT – it looks a lot nicer, though I’m finding out it’s a bit smaller and doesn’t stock quite as much stuff.

DH and I got into a bunny related argument last night. He got home late from playing sports and going to the gym and I told him that Hannah had been upstairs. He really doesn’t want her to get used to going up there because then we’ll have to block it off. I think if we don’t want her up there we’ll have to block it off anyway because she won’t learn to not go up there if we’re not watching her like a hawk. We just can’t agree on whether she should be allowed up there or not.

This morning he came into the bedroom at 6:30 (I was still asleep) and said I had to get up and supervise because Hannah was in our bedroom. lol She really didn’t want to go downstairs either – I had to nudge her in the butt down each step.

Haha, poor Hannah – she wanted to come see what was so interesting up there that BOTH of you are ignoring her for.

Kind of annoyed – been helping someone with their pet since they were new to rescue animals. Well… they just inform the group of us that were offering advice/help that their animal died. After over a week of showing signs of being sick. Didn’t mention it, didn’t ask for help, didn’t take it to the vet because the vet was “too far away”. What on earth? I would travel hours if that is what it took to get my pets treatment.

That is annoying. It’s so sad when animals die from something that could’ve been treated or prevented.

Poor Hannah indeed. I think we should just keep the bedroom doors shut and let her run up and down the stairs and around the hallway all she wants, but DH says it will be a pain to remember to keep the doors shut.

It’s not that hard to get into the habit. But then, guys have trouble keeping things shut – I mean how long does it take to train them to keep the seat down?

Yes it is sad. And if the animal died of what I think it did based off the description, I could have given them an at home treatment that would have only cost a few dollars if they had just mentioned it.

Aww Those make me so sad and angry.

I’m fortunate to have my vet 5 minutes away from me.

Chacha just let my dad pet her He was so happy

Ah man.. I take my allergy medicine before bed (it makes me sleepy) and I woke up around 10:30 am. Eww, not a time I WANT to be awake. I am usually up at 9

Lucky Chacha, my vet is 45 minutes if there is no traffic lol but I go anywhere for my little babies.

Chacha is just putting on the charm so your dad likes the idea of getting her a husbun more! hehe

My vet is about a 20 minute drive in light traffic. Rush hour appointments… an hour

This reminds me that I have to find a new vet! There’s one about 10min away who does see rabbits, but I’d like to call them and talk to them first. There are a couple others near me that may see rabbits (judging by their signs) so I need to call them and pick the best one. I wish the NY HRS was more helpful – there is a site for upstate NY, but it doesn’t include my area since I’m too close to NYC. The NYC HRS considers me too far away to list any vets. lol

My old vet was 30min away from our house in CT – they were expensive, but fantastic. We had a place 5min from home where I occasionally went for nail trims, but I didn’t really trust them with other care.

There are closer ones here too, but I don’t trust them at all – they “see rabbits all the time” but were quite mad and argued with me when I tried to explain to them that rabbits do not actually need to be fasted before spay/neuter when I asked them about it. Sorry… you lost my business. lol Hopefully the one close to you is a good one.

They argued with you about it? D’oh. That’s the kind of thing I always imagined the one office saying. The one I went to for check ups and surgeries was amazing – they really did see rabbits all the time and had at least 3, if not more, exotic vets on staff, so there’s always someone to talk to. Some places I’ve called in the past do have an experienced exotic vet, but they only work a few specific days of the week which is frustrating in an emergency (or if you have a tight schedule).

I tend to look at the signs in front of the office and see if they have birds. I’ve found a lot of places will claim to see small mammals, even if they aren’t exotic vets, but most don’t seem to put birds on the sign unless they specialize in exotics. If they only have a dog and a cat I don’t bother calling. Sad that I have to look for a bird vet to find a bunny vet. lol

Yeah they did. I explained bunnies cannot vomit so you don’t need to fast them and it’s not good for a rabbit to go so long without eating and they got a bit snippy and were like “well, not if you take it up at midnight” and i’m like “ook, thank you very much, goodbye” they are a “bird and small animal” clinic as well – birds all over the place… but they also told me RAISINS were toxic to BIRDS. Um, no? I was tempted to ask them if they had even ever treated an exotic… sheesh.

My vet is a small clinic, just the one vet unless it’s Saturday in which case he has a younger vet come in for the 3 hours they are open. And they close on Sunday. He’s been seeing bunnies for 20 years, so I trust him and he’s always there. If anything happens on weekends though I have to use an emergency vet, which our regular vet says all the ones in town are terrible with exotics, so he’ll stay past closing for patients if he has to on a Friday to avoid them going to an emergency clinic. He doesn’t even have a sign really, just one that says the clinic name + his name under it and DVM… looks like a regular old doctors office.

If you use google maps, they have reviews on a lot of the vets right on their listing and I used that to narrow down the exotics vets in town to call and talk to. People say what type of animal they took there, how well they were treated, etc. in a lot of the reviews. Very useful depending on how active people are on it in your area.

Oh wow.. fasting o_O;; I can’t imagine doing that to a rabbit.

My vet sees rabbits weekly and always goes to conventions and such for new information. She just finished taking a class on chiropractic work on animals. She has approved one of the ‘bunnies in basket’ bunnies She is so great.

UGH, it has been 21 hours since I left a message… and the line said that it would be 48 hours at the most for a return call with the foster’s information. I even called the direct line to the shelter and got the same thing T_______________T I can’t take it anymore lol, I’m going crazy O_O

Sticker, Chacha has no idea ;P I told her yesterday “Do you want a friend? Do you want a friend named Chocolate? Or do you like being by yourself?”

I also look at Yelp reviews for vets and left a very good one for my own

I just finished reading for a bit and when I got off my bed, Chacha was loafing at my door.. talk about being a door stomp.. hahahah

My dog/cat vet is 4 miles from my house. They have a vet there that sees rabbits “on occasion”, when I asked her she said that many just did not come in to the office, and she really only saw a couple a month. So I decided to just take Momo to my exotics vet where my reptiles go, which is a 30 – 45 minute drive.

LOL, here you go, LPT.

Hee hee, she has giant ears and likes to sleep on her nose. She reminds me of Garfield in the middle of a nap attack.

Posted By Stickerbunny on 09/13/2011 07:39 AM
It’s not that hard to get into the habit. But then, guys have trouble keeping things shut – I mean how long does it take to train them to keep the seat down?

real marksmen dont even need to lift it,…

Elrohwen, have you checked the NY State chapter of HRS?  Also, if you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Bedford Hills, I read of Dr Laurie Hess there. There was a link to a NY based magazine in the welcome section here and I thought that had some vet listings. I’ll try find.

I woke up yesterday morning to Chacha sitting on my computer chair, chewing on my work pants…

Love you too, child.

Jersey, I have found an upstate NY chapter of HRS and a NYC chapter, but I haven’t seen a generalized NY state one. Do you have a link? Neither chapter seems to consider my area part of their group People in the city consider this ”upstate” while people who are actually upstate think I live close to the city. lol

I’ve actually been to that vet, with one of my gerbils, but Dr Hess wasn’t in that day and I had to see one of the non-exotic vets since it was sort of an emergency (turns out he dropped my gerbil and gave bad advice … not a very good trip). I’m about 45min from Bedford, so I’d prefer to find someone closer but I won’t rule them out.

You’ve prob already seen this then: http://www.therabbitresource.org/index.html
The magazine I mentioned is not a mag after all. More an online newsletter done by NY HRS. The THUMP. The other vet listed on there is at White Plains.

Check RO and Bunspace if you haven’t yet.

The upstate NY site actually does list one vet in my area – it’s actually the one I was thinking of visiting since I drive by them all the time and they have an exotic vet. Good to know they’re recommended! They’ll be the first place I call and hopefully they work out. Also, I hope they’re cheaper than my last vet.

I’ve heard there’s a fantastic vet in White Plains, but that’s a little far – about another 20min down the same highway that Bedford Hills is on, so maybe an hour away. It’s funny that I think I live in a fairly populated area, but then it’s so hard to find a vet that treats bunnies. Just using Google and reading reviews didn’t help much since the one I found was a coincidence (noticed the sign while driving by)

Ugh, work is dragging today! I’ve been sick for a bit over a week now and the sinus headache is killing me today. I thought it was just a cold, but since I’m still not better I think it might be a sinus infection. Boo. I don’t have a doctor in my new area yet, so I guess this will be an opportunity to look one up. Since I’ve been on allergy shots for the last three years I haven’t been on antibiotics once – even when I get sick, I’m always able to get better on my own (which is a big change from when I was younger and took antibiotics all the time). I keep hoping I’ll be able to get over this one on my own, but more than a week is a bit much.

I just want to go home and take a nap! This meeting is putting me to sleep.

Everything we do here is on our laptops, so they’re pretty much attached to us at all times, which means we take our laptops to meetings. Most people tend to pay attention when the topic is related to their stuff, but then go back to doing other work on their laptops for the rest of the meeting. Sometimes, in between doing other work, I also jump onto BB 😛 It’s kind of a weird dynamic at first, but you eventually get used to everyone doing things on their computers during meetings.

The meeting yesterday was particularly boring – a two hour meeting where only 10 minutes of the stuff is relevent to me. I’d fall asleep if I wasn’t on my computer. lol

So my law school is going to have a barn dance tonight! I’m pretty excited, it’s going to be crazy cheesey, but I like that .  I spent the last week picking up some cheap, silly stuff for an outfit.  Let’s just say there’s a white cow girl hat with giant red roses attached with metal studs involved, it’s going to be absurd!  I almost had to kill my boyfriend this morning though.  He was supposed to pick up the rentail car at 10 am and he messaged me at 11 saying that he couldn’t find his driver’s license.  Sigh.  It’s so typical, in my mother’s words, if his head weren’t screwed on so tight, he’d lose it.  But the crisis was averted.  I’m sad that he’s going to be late so I don’t get to get picked up from school.  Just once not riding the bus would be nice.

Kate and Spence are good, I’ve got them staying out all night now and that makes them pretty happy.  So happy in fact, that they get really, really angry when they don’t get their freedom.  They started to develop an unfortunate habit of eating my furniture at 7am to wake up for breakfast, but I think I’ve cured it with lots of stinky perfume and some well placed yummy baskets to eat.

Barn dance sounds like fun – in a silly sorta way. Hope you enjoy it.

Powder did something REALLY cute today. He’s molting so I need to remove loose hair everyday off of him or he looks like a big puffy cottonball. Well, today he wasn’t being cooperative and wouldn’t let me brush him. He’s getting daily bonding sessions with Stickers, so I looked at him in that “you’re being stubborn” way and told him if he didn’t let me brush him I wasn’t going to give him his girlfriend today. He looked at me and came over to my feet, laid down in loaf position and stayed still until I had ALL the hair off of him and told him he was done. Then he went to the baby gate that separates them like “OK, I did my part of the deal, do yours” lol

One of my friends is coming over today. She gets to see her niece Chacha bun. But right now, all that Chacha wants to do is sleep.

I ordered some APD Timothy and Orchard grass hay. Chacha is almost done with all her hay ._. I think she’ll be good for another 2 weeks, I just want to put in the order early. I don’t want the diva thumping at me.

My room is a mess, hahahahah

Monkey and Smudge got out of their pens this morning. My hubby found Smudge hanging out with Squirrel, and Monkey in the middle of the bag of hay. Silly girls. They escaped some time between when i left for work at 6:15 and when hubby got up at 9:30.

On the bright side, Squirrel and Smudge get along….

LOL @ Monkey in the bag of hay.

We’re having some friends over tonight to sit around our firepit – it’s finally perfect fall weather to use it! DH’s birthday is on Monday so I decided I’d be festive and make him a cake. I’ve made this maple cake a few times from Nigella Lawson’s cookbook and he loves it, so I think “Good, something I know will turn out well.”

The recipe calls for self-rising flour, but usually I use the regular stuff and add baking powder in the right amount. This time I figure I’ll actually buy self-rising flour. FAIL. The stupid cakes rose so much that they splattered batter on the floor of the oven. Lame. I caught it and put a sheet pan under it before there was too much mess, but there was still some burning and smoking away. I hope the cake turns out ok.

Ahhh, just took the cakes out the pans and realized at least one of the two is definitely not done in the middle. They seemed sort of soft in the middle, but I had cooked them 10min past the recommended time and the toothpicks I inserted came out clean.

I stuck them both on a sheet pan and they’re going back in for 10 more minutes. I know it’s not going to work that well, but hopefully they’ll at least not be wet in the middle.

I hate baking sometimes – give me cooking any day. If this doesn’t work out I’m totally blaming it on the fact that this is my first time using my new oven.

“UGH.. the bunnarazi…”

I looooove to bake. I am a pretty good cook as well. Nobody can beat my home made mac and cheese. I like want to enter it in a competition or something. It really is the best.

Elrohwen, sometimes some flours are unreliable so you can blame it on that too. Recipes here use self raising a lot but I notice American recipes often don’t or refer to cake flour. Some brands of self raising flours have failed on me. I think you need to sift the entire bag a couple times before using it.

Ditto the need to snuggle that otter belly!

Jersey, that’s very true! If anybody knows about flour variation it should be me – we talked about it all the time when I worked at a food company.

It’s definitely true that American recipes don’t usually call for it – most times I haven’t even been able to find it in the grocery store. Leave it to Nigella, a British lady, to include it in most of her recipes. The cake turned out ok in the end. The one that dripped all over the oven was very good. The other one rose up in the center, then collapsed, and the collapsed part was still underdone, but after I put the icing on and had them in layers, I don’t think you could tell. It did seem a bit dense though. Oh well. Everybody enjoyed it anyway!

My favorite part of the night was definitely the baked brie though. Mmmmm. I did caramelized onions and mushrooms, then topped with a frozen pie crust I had sitting in my freezer. That thing was so good, and sitting around the firepit digging into it was the best part.

I use self rising flour in everything – I hate having to measure out salt/baking powder lol sifting really is key with it though and be VERY careful about your measurements. Self rising tends to clump a bit during mixing and leaves “pockets” of flour, which can throw off consistency if you don’t mix well also. But I find it a lot easier to use.

Sounds like you had a very tasty and fun time though. Glad it all came out well in the end.

And yes, Ms. Chacha has a very cute tummy! Do you ever get the urge to just kiss her belly? And if you give in, would she give you that death glare and foot flick away ? lol

my friend ernie and i are going to climb to the top peak of Lost Dutchman state park tomorrow morning.
its a 6.5 miles r/t from the parking lot up to 5000′

the females wont be accompanying us on this one. last weekend shana and i hiked  up a little less than half way and it took nearly 4 hours round trip. we’re just going to haul ass up it tomorrow

,,

I get the urge to rub her tummy a lot! It is quite hard.. LOL!

When I have to pick her up for nail trims/grooms, I hold her and rub my face in her tum tum.. of course, she hates it o_o;;;

longhairmike – you need to start a thread entitled “Aventures of Longhairmike!” or something, haha. Looks awesome…

That one rock in the middle towards the left hand side of that picture looks like it is giving a certain hand gesture. LOL!

This morning, I got waken up by Chacha. she got onto my bed and climbed all over me (which she doesn’t do when I’m awake.. and I’m covered in a blanket, so I look like something she feels the need ot go over) and when I woke up, she BINKIED on me xD LIke “WHOA!!!!!!!!!! MOMMY IS AWAKE!!!”

Cute! I wonder how long she was there before you woke?

I sometimes sleep on the floor with J&R and get early morning visits. Also I let TimTim stay out all night and he likes sleep on the bed. I can’t with Jelly
yet though. AND Jelly peed on my bedding earlier. :/ He hasn’t done that before.

AW NO!! Naughty Jelly bun!

Chacha jumped off afterward, and I stayed in bed. She started cheewing on my bookshelf and I took that as a sign to get my butt out of bed LOL

My dad is making turkey/vegetarian + cabbage, lettuce, carrot lumpia tonight! I’m starting to cut down on my meat.

I watched ‘Forks over knives’ on Netflix and told my dad to also. He put it on his instant queue. It is a real eye opener.

I’m sorry, but “lumpia” doesn’t sound that apetizing. lol What is it?

These amazing things!

Eggrolls from the Philippines. I can’t eat any other eggroll..

At least they look appetising!

My BIL aunt is filipino I believe and makes these spring rolls that are really yummy. That’s what these lumpia look like to me.

turkey IS meat…

If you cut down on meat, make sure to take b12 supplements.

I know another good source of  B vitamins…..

I love spring rolls (veggie!) but what is the difference in a regular egg roll/spring roll and lumpia?

Posted By Monkeybun on 09/18/2011 12:55 PM

If you cut down on meat, make sure to take b12 supplements.

Oy, you and your B12!! Do you work for a vitamin company or something? 

Sorry I am a die hard carnivore. I like some vegetarian foods, but I could never live without my meat.

Its funny that you mentiion that. I do take b12 supplements. After I got off my anti depressants, I take b12 daily.

Tate. Monkey has a point about those vitamins. It helps with energy metabolism.

I would rather eat turkey than red meat

Hahaha
I’m not becoming a vegetarian.I’m just taking some meats out of my diet. I just don’t think I need a ton of animal protein -_- there are so many other sources of protein.

Posted By LoveChaCha on 09/18/2011 06:00 PM
Its funny that you mentiion that. I do take b12 supplements. After I got off my anti depressants, I take b12 daily.

Tate. Monkey has a point about those vitamins. It helps with energy metabolism.

I would rather eat turkey than red meat

Lol, oh yes, I know. You should see the *sheer amount* of vitamins I take… I think I take an upwards of 15-16 daily.. Although, to be completely fair, 6 of those are just calcium and D3… Man, I can’t wait to cut those out. 

Posted By Tate on 09/18/2011 04:31 PM

Posted By Monkeybun on 09/18/2011 12:55 PM

If you cut down on meat, make sure to take b12 supplements.

Oy, you and your B12!! Do you work for a vitamin company or something? 

lol no, but I used to hav a severe b12 deficiency, so I know how important it is. And that if you don’t eat meat, you need supplments or face very bad health issues.

we did it,,, 1:45 up,, 1:15 down,, the last mile to the top was really more rockclimbing than a ‘trail’

ernie has some more footage on his camera, but i forgot to copy it before he left.

Posted By Monkeybun on 09/18/2011 07:25 PM

Posted By Tate on 09/18/2011 04:31 PM

Posted By Monkeybun on 09/18/2011 12:55 PM

If you cut down on meat, make sure to take b12 supplements.

Oy, you and your B12!! Do you work for a vitamin company or something? 

 

lol no, but I used to hav a severe b12 deficiency, so I know how important it is. And that if you don’t eat meat, you need supplments or face very bad health issues.

Gahh!! I just got done with a monster reading on the role of vitamin B12 in the role of protein metabolism and deficiency diseases, so I got on BB to take a break….only to see this!  My schoolwork is haunting me!

lol sorry peppy

Exactly why I love B12 so much ahaha. It has helped me so much

Haha, house hunters is in oregon

Mike, gorgeous pictures!

Today is DH’s birthday, so last night we decided to grill (haven’t grilled anything since we got the new house). Unusually for us, we decided to do steak! I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a steak – I eat burgers sometimes, but otherwise no red meat. It was pretty good! I’m still not a steak person, but it’s kind of fun once in a while. DH topped it with blue cheese which was yummy.

We drove around to a few garage sales yesterday. I think we need to go on Saturdays since they probably have better stuff – most of the ones we visited only had junk. Two of them actually had cool junk – not stuff I would necessarily buy, but fun to look at (while the others just had actual junk). We did come home with a silver tray and a silver teapot for $10. I like trays for organizing things on tables and dressers and this one seemed cool. Not sure what I’m going to do with the teapot, but it’s kind of a departure from my usual style and vintage things always add interest.

awesome elrohwen!

I’m not a steak person either, but I LOVE a good hamburger once in a while haha I love topping mine with a ton of lettuce!

Garage sales are crazy fun When my dad and I had 2 garage sales (to get rid of stuff when the house sold), a lot of people were in awe of the stuff we had. We had some Asian stuff and it went fairly quickly.

I am off on Monday 9/26. I plan to do my compass test for the local community college I’ll be attending in January. My mom’s 54th birthday would have been 9/26. It is a sign My next day off that week is Friday and the testing office is closed that day. When I took my final GED test 2 years ago, I didn’t realize that I took it on my grandma’s birthday (she had passed a while ago). I think it is fate working

What’s the compass test? Does it tell you which classes you place into or something?

I keep hoping we’ll find something awesome at a garage sale. I guess we did find 11 wooden folding chairs for $5, and they’ve been very useful. DH is hoping to find some power tools I think, but no luck so far.

I’m amazed at how much junk people put out! I don’t understand who would buy most of this crap …. they’d save a lot of time just dropping everything off at Goodwill – that’s what I do anyway! I have no patience for selling my old stuff.

It is a placement test to see where I am – learning wise I have to get a certain number to get into the program I registered for. Heh.

Ahh, I guessed right then! Good luck! What’s on it? Math and science stuff?

Math, Reading, and Writing

I wil take a juicy steak over a burger any day! Mmmm meat.

I”ve got some major hiccups. GAH!

I’m with you Monkeybun, I love a good steak. I HATE hamburgers though. I had a great filet mignon with peppercorn mashed potatoes, and sugar snap peas for dinner this weekend when my boyfriend was visiting. Yummmmmmmmmmmmm
In other news, I woke up this morning with Katie standing on my chest staring down at me. Apparently, it was breakfast time. lol.

Kate, I think all of our rabbits are teaming up and being brats to us humans. Chacha binkied on my belly yesterday morning. I got off my bed this morning to fix breakfast, and when I went back into my room, she was sitting on my bed… o_o

My work just called me to ask me to work 3 extra hours. ER, I sometimes dislike working for grocery stores. Ugh. I declined. Sometimes, I do, sometimes I don’t. My dad and I are making dinner together tonight *irritated at work*

KateMonster, that sounds similar to what we had! I love mashed potatoes (much more than steak) so I definitely had to make those. We intended to grill corn, but the farm by our house was out so we picked up some good looking green beans instead.

I much prefer burgers! A good bun is key, plus some yummy toppings like caramelized onions and mushrooms – not a fan of lettuce and tomatoes on my burgers in general unless it’s really good quality lettuce and tomatoes.

I’m thinking of going shopping after work, but then I think of sitting in my car for half an hour, vs being home in less than 10 minutes, and I decide not to. Haha. DH has late frisbee games tonight and Wednesday (ending at 7:45 I think) so I have all this extra time to do something I want to do, but I can’t get up the motivation. I guess spending money isn’t something I should be doing anyway 😛

Haven’t been on in a bit except to talk about Arthur’s neuter. He is perfectly fantastic now. So I have one more day left to work in Labor and Delivery, however, I am not taking the position in the ER as originally planned. I now have a position on the floor I wanted, 4th Floor, which is our Oncology unit. So much more excited! I don’t officially start till next Monday though (I took some vacation time before I start my new position). I’m getting a little though. I love my LDR girls. I’m going to miss them terribly.

Posted By Arthur’sMom on 09/19/2011 04:30 PM
Haven’t been on in a bit except to talk about Arthur’s neuter. He is perfectly fantastic now. So I have one more day left to work in Labor and Delivery, however, I am not taking the position in the ER as originally planned. I now have a position on the floor I wanted, 4th Floor, which is our Oncology unit. So much more excited! I don’t officially start till next Monday though (I took some vacation time before I start my new position). I’m getting a little though. I love my LDR girls. I’m going to miss them terribly.

Yay, glad to hear the Arthur is doing well now. Has he forgiven you yet?

What’s your job? It seems like several of us here are in the healthcare field, which is funny because a woman at the rescue where I adopted Milo commented that it seems like a lot of people who come looking for bunnies work in healthcare!

That is quite funny Peppy hahahah!!!! I’ll be hanging out with Chacha if my brain fries from too much reading/studying. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind taking chomps out of my books..

This is MY chair!

Another one of MY chairs…

And of course, this squishy slave-shaped one is MY chair too!

HAHAHAHA OMG OWNED!!!!!!!!!!

Peppy: I’m an RN. A lot of people in healthcare have pets in general I feel. We are caretakers no matter if you have two legs or four! Lol.
I think he has pretty much forgiven me. I got groomed today, right on the ol’ eyeball! I was sooooo happy!

Aww, peppy those are cute

I have decided Powder is hopeless on the grooming front. I let them spend the night together and when I woke up to let them out, I pet Stickers and Powder came over to help me groom her… but he used his teeth after the first lick and she was not a fan. lol I don’t think he’s been around buns much to learn how to do it, he was being all cautious and trying to be gentle, but he needs to learn to lick. Silly boy.

Mike, I am so jealous. You live in beautiful country! 😮

Arthur’s Mom – HAHA!!!! GROOMING ON THE EYEBALL? XD Chacha has kissed me on the eyelid. It is so cute! She often kisses me all over the nose, cheek, chin, lips. She is a big lover.. yet a thumper.

Sticker, I thought that you lived in the US?

I do live in the U.S – but I don’t live in a place that has such pretty scenery it’s all grass, farms, grass, trees, grass, farms, houses, more farms

*sigh* Had to take Fievel to the vet today… He’s got a lump of gunk in his belly. No obstruction, but it’s still not good! My poor little guy! They aren’t doing motility drugs just yet on him. I have to go get some canned pumpkin and try feeding that to him. Unfortunately, I have labs the rest of the day today and a long one tomorrow so I won’t be able to watch him at home. So scary!

How’s everybody doing this morning?

I stayed home sick yesterday. I’ve had this killer sinus infection for almost 3 weeks now and I just felt awful. I already had a doctor’s appointment planned for 3:00, luckily. I kind of felt depressed after seeing the ENT though – I’m so tired of being the new “special patient” with all of the problems. My sinuses have been pretty good over the last few years and I guess I thought I was growing out of this stuff a little, but maybe not. At least I’m on meds now so I can improve. I haven’t needed an antibiotic in almost 3 years now, so it was disappointing to be back on all the stuff.

Bunnies are good! They were very happy I was home with them yesterday and sad when I wouldn’t let them stay out this morning. lol

Sticker, Hannah has always been very rough in the grooming department as well. She usually only grooms Otto on the eyes and looks like she’s trying to take a chunk out of his eyeballs. Gentle she is not! He’s gotten used to it though and he never has eye gunkies anymore. Haha. I do think he wishes she would just groom him gently on the head though – he looks so desperate when he flattens his face under her only to get some quick and violent eye groomies.

Oh, and a cooking post! In my efforts to cut out even more processed food, I think I’m going to start making my own breads for lunches. I like making bread and I have made sandwich rolls and bread before, but I never stick with it and end up back with the processed stuff. Lately I notice more headaches on the days I eat sandwiches for lunch (processed bread, plus ham and cheese from the deli, though I do try to buy the highest quality deli meats).

Anyway, I’m going to try for a whole month of making completely homemade lunches! I’m going to start out with chicken salad – roasting a chicken is easy and then I just have to mix with mayo. Not sure where I’ll go after that … ideas anyone?

Maybe I’ll even make my own mayo! I’ve done it before, but never for sandwiches.

Yet another headache. Went to my doc yesterday, she gave me a couple prescriptions for em. Hopefully they work. If they don’t, I get to get some scans done of my head 😐

Aww, I really feel for you, MB! I’ve had headache problems for years and am still trying to find the answer. Do you get migraines? Daily headaches?

What did she prescribe? I tried topomax which worked really well for a couple months until I had an allergic reaction to it and stopped taking it (there were also some weird side effects, but they were more annoying than anything). I’m currently on a low dose of Prozac, but it doesn’t seem to be working either. I tried to increase the dose (doctor wanted me to try and double it) but the side effects got worse so I stayed on the lowest dose. I guess I’ll have to go back and try something else.

With my sinus infection I have a lot of sinus pressure and that certainly isn’t helping things!

Posted By LittlePuffyTail on 09/21/2011 04:27 AM
(((((Fievel))))) Do you have some Critical Care to feed him?

I do have Critical Care but I haven’t bothered to give it to him. He stopped eating for a few hours on Saturday, but other than that I’ve been able to encourage him to eat. The biggest change I noticed was that he wasn’t eating pellets, which are his favorite. He’s actually eating his hay very well and I’ve given him… holy crap, like $40 worth of greens in since Saturday (I’ve been good the past few weeks and kept veggies to $25/week!!). He WON’T eat that pumpkin crap and that worries me. He’s still pooping though, and more so since he’s been to the vet. He left… no, no, more like gave birth… to a giant cecal yesterday. Like, almost golf ball size. Haha. But he may have to go back to the vet tomorrow for medicine. It’s hard to tell if he’s truly not feeling well still or if he’s just PO’d at me. :\

It’s good that he’s eating and pooping! I’m not surprised he won’t eat the pumpkin – I’m sure Otto would turn his nose up at it too. I would try syringe feeding some of it and see how that goes – it could help to get some extra fluids in at least (greens will help with that too).

Vibes to Fievel!

Yeah, I tried doing that yesterday and it ended up all over both of us! Lol. The thing is, my other rabbit LOVES pumpkin. Haha. I will try to syringe feed him again though. My poor little nugget!

Aww, poor buddy!

Have you tried pinning him between your knees? This works super well for Hannah. I just kneel over her and kind of trap her between my knees gently. I close my feet behind so she can’t go backwards and usually do it with her facing the pen so she can’t dart forwards, then I put a hand on her shoulder to keep her still. It’s pretty quick and I’ve got the syringe in before she even knows what’s happening.

He’s actually ok to hold. I wrap him up in my heavy robe and hold him like a baby. The pumpkin in really think though so it’s hard to actually get it in his mouth. He’s been spitting it up on me.

Poor Fievel, (((((((get better)))))))))

Elrohwen: When I make chicken salad, I add some diced black olives, red onion and dill weed. It all goes on potato bread, and it is tasty!!! Other than that, try some soups for lunch, you can use the leftover chicken and broth from the one you roast! Speaking of roast, we made a beef roast a few weeks ago that was to die for! We just bought a small roast, cut a few slits in it and pushed pieces of garlic down in them, put it on the oven rack with drip pan on the rack below and cooked to directions. It was so tender and we couldn’t stop eating it! Chili is another good one! You can make a large batch and reheat small portions throughout the week. Plus, you can really switch things up chili by making frito pie, chili burgers, 3 way chili… ok im done.

I groomed Huckleberry last night (nails and fur, eek!). I noticed her scratching her cheeks a lot lately so I decided to carefully comb that area too (I covered her eyes with my hand and moved very slowly). I guess she had some food stuck in her fur because I got a clump of crud out and then she started tooth purring! It was strange. She usually honks when I groom her. So, as a thank you, she cuddled with me on the couch last night. Later, after she had dinner, she flopped next to the door but she went over too fast and hit her head. I am sure she is ok but she got up and shook her head and tried to lay back down a little more carefully the next time.

Soups are a good idea, especially now that it’s cooler out (and it’s always cold in my office anyway). DH isn’t into soups for dinner anyway (he’s a big eater) so I would be safe making a bunch of soup and not having him eat it all the first night. Lol. That’s my problem with leftovers – we rarely have any! So I have to make something specifically for my lunches or else get the ol’ ham sandwich (DH actually makes it, since he makes one for himself too). The chili doesn’t work though – if he sees that in the fridge he’ll finish all the leftovers as a snack before we even eat dinner. lol

I think chicken salad will definitely be my first step – it’s so easy to dress up. I like your ideas! I usually make mine with tarragon, which is yummy. I’ll have to conquer the bread thing first – I need to find a really good loaf recipe, since I usually don’t make breads for sandwiches and don’t have a go-to recipe for good slicing bread.

Lol @ Huckles. I wish my bunnies would give me snuggles for grooming! I got the brush out the other day and got one swipe on Hannah before she ran off and looked at me reproachfully. Even when I put it away she wouldn’t let me near her for an hour. I just sneak up on her and pluck the tufts from her butt because I can’t help it.

Mimz got a good grooming last nite and his fur is molting in odd round spurts all over. I’m afraid he really hates the hairbuster, even though it does the best job.
El, have you ever seen the book Laurel’s Kitchen? It’s been revamped since the 70’s version but still has wonderful bread recipes in it and helpful tips.
I noticed many of my aches and pains went away when I stopped drinking soda for awhile. Had to give up coffee recently too due to an arrythmia. I drink mostly herb tea now. If you can find Traditional Medicinals Gypsy Cold Care with yarrow in it, it’s great for sinus trouble.

Elrohwen – my bunnies actually like it when I groom them too! However, none of them do a crazy molt (thank goodness, no plucking!), just some seasonal heavy shedding. But when I brush them, they’ll hunker down and tooth purr…it’s so cute, hehe. Peppy and Milo especially like it when I clean out her eyes and will almost always give me a few licks in response.

Peppy, I’m very jealous! Otto used to be ok with it if we brushed him while he was eating – he didn’t like it, but at least he’d sit there and let us do it for a couple minutes. Now he’s horrible – I think because Hannah picks on him and gooses him in the bum, so he doesn’t like anyone touching him back there. Hannah just hates it with a passion, though she loves being touched and petted in general. I think I need to try one of those grooming mitts – maybe she’ll just think she’s being petted.

Mimz, I’ll have to check it out. I have a couple bread-specific cookbooks, but I usually make the french/baguette types or the dinner rolls, so I don’t really know any good recipes for sandwich bread. I’ve tried one or two, but they never wowed me. Still better than the packaged stuff though! I worked for a bread company for a while and after that I just don’t like the taste of processed bread for some reason.

I’m feeling very uncomfortable right now.

I’ve been dating my boyfriend for almost 7 years.

I just got on my facebook and I see a picture that he is tagged in that makes me want to scream my head off, pull my hair off and freak out at the same time.

It is a photo of him with a toothpick in his mouth, and a girl doing the same and the toothpicks are touching.

It is quite shocking to see such things being tagged without knowing WTF is going on.

UGH.

*sigh*

Just needed to vent this out.

Posted By Elrohwen on 09/21/2011 11:36 AM 
That’s my problem with leftovers – we rarely have any! 

 HAHHAHAHAHA!!! I have the same problem. My bf HATES a lot of foods though, so if I put mayo, mushrooms or alfredo sauce in anything, its alllll mine!

Huck usually does not like grooming, that is why i was so shocked by it!

Chacha!   That’s NOT cool!! I am sure you are on the phone with him right now figuring it all out. I hope it was just a silly stupid misunderstanding but, geeeeze what a slap in the face/kick in the stomach! <> 

It was for a school main event. A ‘FUN’ thing involving all of the houses on campus.

Yeah, thats great. Seeing a suggestive photo of your boyfriend trying to pass a U*(#&$*#NG livesaver from ONE TOOTHPICK TO ANOTHER.

He explained it to me and even said it was fun.

FUn? DO YOU WANT ME TO TEAR YOUR HEAD OFF RIGHT NOW? DO YOU THINK IT IS NICE FOR YOUR GIRLFRIEND TO SEE STUFF LIKE THIS?!?!?!

Take a deep breath, take a break from it and come back to it with a clear head in the morning – explain to him that seeing photos like that of him with other girls makes you feel insecure about your relationship and take it from there. Yelling at him is just going to make him defensive and a fight will happen and that never solves anything. It was a pretty insensitive thing for him to do though, especially not even mentioning it and letting you find out that way. Sheesh.

Neither of my rabbits like grooming, lucky people! I have to trick them into it lol

I explained to him.. and (no yelling) well I got a ‘ok, whatever’ response.

This is why I like my bunny over humans.

Wow… “OK, whatever” is certainly not the response he should give in that situation. Sorry he can’t understand. At least your Chacha bun is there to cheer you up.

Think of it from his point of view though. He plays along with a school event thing. Someone tags a pic of him doing dais school thing. Then he gets a call with you freaking on him. He gets defensive, says Whatever.

I know I’d get annoyed if someone called me to freak without thinking of my point of view. Give it a bit of time, then call him up when you are calm. It really isn’t that big of a deal. I did the same kind of event thing at my school, its really not that big of a deal.

Elrohwen, how long have you been in the new house now? Do you think your sinus have flaired up from something in or near the house?
Hey, since you’re going to be making your own bread – why not try some wheat free recipes? haha. Seriously though, may as well. I think barley flour can be used as a substitute. Can you get spelt flour easily enough? It is wheat but those sensitive to wheat tolerate it better.

@Tate, if Fievel is eating heaps of hay and veg, that is really promising. He must know what he needs and pellets aren’t it at the moment. I wouldn’t worry about that too much. {{{Buffalo}}}

Those are good ideas Jerz. I’ve never heard of spelt flour though…I may be a bit gluten intolerant also. Where do you usually look for it?

Mimzy is back to pellets after not having them for years. He is not enjoying his hay as much and really likes the new treats from the BB store; the lavender-chamomile treat and the new rosebuds and cranberries are a BIG hit with him. I like the bunny bouquet too… They smell so good I want to make tea out of them.

Jersey, you keep trying to take away my gluten! Lol. Maybe I’ll give it a shot … I’ll have to see what kinds of flours are available at my store beyond white and wheat. We’ve been in the house a bit over a month. I did consider that it was a problem with my allergies and then the allergies morphed into a sinus infection (especially because I don’t think I got a cold or anything that set it off). I’m going to restart on allergy shots in this area and I think that will help – I was healthier when I was getting shots every week or two, but now I’m up to ever 4 weeks and they don’t seem to help as much. It could also just be that it’s been a very wet fall and I’m particularly allergic to molds and things which are probably growing all over the place.

Britt, I’m with MB on this – I think it’s probably not that big of a deal and he probably felt defensive about it and didn’t know what to say. I’m not sure how your relationship is and if there has been any problems with jealousy, cheating, or whatever and I could see how that would make things worse. However, if you guys have always had a trusting relationship and you honestly believe he’d never do anything out of line, then I’d give him a break and see what he has to say. Silly stuff goes on at school and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad is happening.

 Fievel has to go back to the vet today.  He just hasn’t shown ENOUGH improvement since Tuesday and now he won’t eat his veggies and won’t drink water- even if I syringe it to him. He is probably going to stay overnight so they can do more sub q fluids and a motility drug and appetite stimulator. I’m so upset! I know that this really is an easy fix once he’s in the vet’s care- we’re so lucky it isn’t a blockage yet. I’m not at all worried about the prognosis- he will be back to his stubborn self very soon- but I just don’t want to leave him in a tiny cage with all of the hustle and bustle of the vet. The vet I use here is a teaching hospital and while it’s actually a very good vet- it’s busy because so many people take their animals here, plus we have tons (and tons and tons and tons…) of animals belonging to the school itself. I love my little Buffalo. 

Healing vibes to Fievel! I would be equally upset and worried in your situation and I hope he comes home soon.

Haha, thanks. I just got back from dropping him off. The Dr is so awesome so I felt better after I talked with her. He may be able to come home later tonight, just depends on how he does there.

oh noes! healing vibes to fievel! rorschach gave me a similar scare not too long ago so I know how nerve wracking it is. here’s crossing my fingers he comes home tonight =]

Not coming home tonight. The Dr. said that he was being very stubborn with his pumpkin. Haha. So she’s going to keep him and give him a few more good belly massages and see if that works. So far, she actually hasn’t done any medications other than more sub q fluids. I do miss my little nugget!

ChaCha, I’m sorry! That sounds crappy.  Without knowing more about you guys, here’s my “expert”, unsolicited view.   Unless he’s a serious jerk, in which case I doubt you would have been with him for seven years, I’m guessing he really does think the picture is totally innocent, otherwise he’d have made sure he didn’t get tagged in it.  But it can be really, really hard, and induce some insecurity, to be the partner who is home and working and not in the huge social scene like I assume he is (sounds like he’s at a university?).  I remember when my boyfriend and I first started dating, I had already graduated and was home working and he was still finishing school and he had this friend who made me absolutely NUTS because she would very obviously flirt with him when I was around, he was of course completely oblivious and insisted that she just didn’t know how her behavior was perceived because she was ‘naive’ and ‘unwordly’ (lol I’m sure you’ve encountered her type).  Anyway, it made me crazy to know they were hanging out when I wasn’t I there, it was irrational because I trust him and he’s not even sort of programmed to be a cad and she didn’t really want him, she was just mad that someone took her guy friend that she could count on when she wanted to look like she had a date.  But it is really rough.  And, in my opinion, you should say that you trust him, blah blah, and you know it’s not entirely rational, but the situation in inherently a bit crazy making and he needs to understand how things like that make you feel, respect your feelings without dismissing them because they’re your feelings and you can’t change them, and then eventually you have to accept his reassurances, so you don’t go crazy. So ends Auntie Lauren’s unsolicited advice. 

He tends to start cussing (not at me, but it FEELS like it is AT ME!) when his point hasn’t gotten across.

So, he hung up on me. He said that he would have taken the tag off but now he isn’t going to.

I deactivated my account on facebook. I need to do other things and get ready for school. I need to find scholarships. I won’t be bothered. I am even considering changing my phone number. I really do not want to deal with his attitude. if he is going to be IMMATURE about it then fine. I wanted to talk to him because I felt like it was the adult way to. When cuss words are being thrown around, it makes me clam up and not even want to talk to him. “I’ll work on it.” Isn’t that always the excuse that they give?

I can’t even call back because his phone isn’t giving him his phone calls. He said (before he hung up on me that is) that he ordered pizza not so long ago and the delivery guy tried calling him and John said he didn’t get the call. So well, I think he can be a jerk if he wants and not deal with this situation like an adult.

Before I called him, I’ve begun to feel the effects of stress on my body. I am getting over a cold, and now my stomach is in knots, I have to go to the bathroom a lot more. (Sorry if this is TMI) I feel nauseated and jittery.

Is this even worth it?

I really wish all my BB girls lived closer………

Chacha, if you weren’t being accusatory and he cannot discuss it in an adult manner… no it isn’t worth it. He should be able to rationally discuss it with you, without swearing, without raising his voice. There should be give and take and you should BOTH understand the others points of view. It should come to a mutual understanding. He shouldn’t have to change what he did or not go to school events – school events are innocent so long as it doesn’t go farther and even the picture is fine, but he should take into account YOUR feelings about it as well. If he were my boyfriend, I would want to be given a little heads up about such things so I know not to freak out if I see such pictures. He shouldn’t have to remove the picture, but he should be willing to accept that your feelings were a bit hurt by seeing it without any idea what was going on. If after seven years he can’t have a discussion of a problem and your feelings about something… it likely isn’t going to change, at least not anytime soon. If you can accept that, accept him for what he is, stay with him. If you can’t, focus on your school work and don’t let him distract you at a time that you really don’t need the stress.

In bunny news – covering the area where Powder has been going to the bathroom outside his litter box in boxes seems to be working lol I just need 3 more litter boxes to completely cover the area. Hrm. Rabbits.

thank you sticker

I have some friends attempting to (ok it is working) make me laugh. I haven’t cried this hard since I lost my mom, but it is releasing a lot of my stress and it is helping me emotionally.. to just.. release it.

I’m going out with one of my close friends that I”ve known since we were 14. I remember the day that I met her in 9th grade English class. We are going shopping together. I need to make myself a smoothie, take my vitamins, and take a shower.

I’m going to smile today.

Stickerbunny, very wise words!

Britt, I just sent you a PM with some virtual hugs. It sounds like he has major issues dealing with conflict and the whole situation was blown way out of proportion – you had an issue and wanted to discuss – whether he felt your fears were valid or not he had no right to swear and yell at you. I know 7 years is a long time, but being with someone who can’t have a calm and honest discussion about things that are bothering you is not worth your time.

That sounds like a great idea. When I went through my last break up, two girls from school took me to an amusement park in Orlando and we spent all night running around and NOT thinking about it. Go out, have fun, forget him for the day and enjoy yourself!

That does sound like a good plan! Go out and have fun with friends and don’t think about him.

Get some good bunny snuggles too 🙂

I plan to!

Er, I might get kicked and pummeled if I hug Chacha.. I think I will though. It is one of those ‘times.’ Wish me luck on not getting scratched, bitten, or rabbit PUNCHED! XD

Maybe some nice pets instead of full on snuggles? 🙂

Haha, maybe she’ll see that mommy is upset and allow a snuggle this one time, with a proper disapproving glare.

Whenever I need to be cheered up I watch this: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2F4…r_embedded

It’s guaranteed to make you smile.

LOL Lauren. I started watching it and DH was like “What the heck are you watching in there?!” Towards the end he said “You’re still watching that?!” Hahaha I told him you have to watch til the end to see the bunnies.

Well, she got snuggles.. She ran away and just currently ate a cecal and is now passed out again!

I had a good day with my friend. We went shopping. I got a new shirt, dress, and flats (for 9.99 and that are actually COMFY for my big feet!). I got the dress on clearance at hot topic.. digmenowx told me about it a while ago and I totally forgot about it until now!

http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/WhatsNew/Tops/Blue-Bunny-Black-amp-White-Polka-Dot-TwoFer-Dress-705469.jsp

I got the dress in blue and white It fit me!! It is short, so I’ll have to wear shorts underneath it or something

We went to a grocery store nearby. I needed to buy some food. I have in the oven: meatless pizza on hamburger buns. It is morning star meat starters ‘meat’ with cheese, tomato sauce and olives on whole wheat hamburger buns. It is a vegtarian take on what my dad used to make for me when I was a little girl, except without the meat! I feel happy to cook my own food.

I lost some water weight from being sick the past 2 days … ick. A diet of tomato soup with wild rice will do that. Most of the time, I was spent waking up, taking medicine and going back to sleep. It is awfully weird seeing my hip bones stick out …

My friend did take a picture of me and Chacha together.. who wants to see it?

Glad you had fun – that is a cute dress, a pair of leggings or tight shorts would go well with it since it’s short. I love hot topic clothes – well, the ones that aren’t too out there lol

I wanna see the chacha bun pics

A picture that I took back in July that I have not posted.

This is what happens when you disturb a diva’s sleep.

Oh sweet pics! I can’t get over how quick your hair grows Brittany. btw, thinking of you Hon.

@ Elrohwen:
 

Jersey, you keep trying to take away my gluten!

No, just wheat…for now. haha! And I haven’t even started on about dairy yet!! I should take my own advice and start eliminating wheat, dairy and caffeine *cries*

@MM, spelt is a really old variety of wheat. Another similar one is Egyptian Gold (Kamut?). I’m not really sure where best to find it. I’ve found it through organic mills and also in bread maker stores. For a while here, a spelt bread was available but it’s harder to find now. It was expensive though!

Aww, love the pic of you and ChaCha!

Awww, you two look cute together – she looks like she tried to tolerate it as long as possible lol

Thanks guys

I don’t own any sweet photos of ChachA.. HMM.. I may have to work on that, if I can.

She keeps on leaving territoral poops in my bedroom! There is a litter box, and she keeps on pooping right outside of it. To her, it must be: “I SMELL MOMMY EVERYWHERE! MUST MARK!” XD

Stickers is so cute lol the bird dropped millet on the floor and Stickers ran to grab it and when I took it away she gave me this most pitiful “AW MOM!” look.

Hope everyone has a fun rest of the weekend. Silly chacha marking your bedroom.

Well, it’s official.  Bunnies are going to the vet to get their toe nails trimmed from now on.  The first time I did it, it was crazy easy I just put them in the bathtub and trimmed their nails.  Everytime it gets progressively more difficult, but it was doable.  No longer.  I feel really bad, their nails are getting too long but I keep trying to trim them, and I get one or two at a time, but that’s just not fast enough to keep up with them.  So I set out this afternoon they were both going to get a thorough trimming, even if it took hours!  But, I have to admit defeat.  I couldn’t get a single nail.  Spencer now digs and bites at me.  And Katie just wiggles and climbs up me.  I’ve tried everything I can think of (and am comfortable with, Katie almost took a flying leap off the vet’s table last time we were there, and she was way more intimidated by him and that office than by me and my apartment so no washers or tables for us) I’ve burritoed them and they just spaz and wiggle around until I’m afraid they’ll hurt themselves or they get out, I try covering their eyes and that doesn’t even phase them, I’ve tried trancing and they just kick me in the chest and run away.  So, I can admit when I’ve been beaten, to the vet we go.  And I know it’s actually a good thing that they’re being so difficult really, the reason it was so easy before was because I scared them enough that they didn’t fight me, well I don’t even phase them now! lol.  Ah well, it’s a good thing I guess, I need to find a new vet in my new town and a nail trim and a basic checkup is a pretty good way to vet the Vet. Just needed to whine a little about the turdlets.  On the plus side, while trying to trim Katie nails I get to pet her (only time that happens) and today she even tooth purred!  Maybe I need to be doing a bunny bonding with me and Katie.  I could put us in a basket on top of the dryer or get someone to take us for a car ride!

In other news, apparently my law school is now embroiled in scandal, it seems the dean of admission inflated some stats on the web page and recruitment info, luckily nothing was officially reported but that means we’re now having an investigation to find out how it happened and if this was the only year it happened.  I seriously know how to pick ’em.  I went to get my MA and found myself surrounded by backstabbing crazy people, and then I go to get a law degree and I end up in the middle of a potentially very serious scandal.  Sheesh.

I SWEAR, I wake up to poops every morning *face plant* I laugh at it, and talk to Chacha saying “Mommy gave you your own litter box and you know how to use it.. yet you like to mark my room….. Whyyyy??” or “You little brat!”

I believe she knows my tone of voice.

I went shopping today and I picked up a new bag of blueberry craisins. I gave one to Chacha and she footflicked me D:

Oh how I wish my husband would get off his butt and finish fixing the computer. I got one of the best pics of Momo the other night. And I have tons of great pics and video of her I want to share, but can’t until he finishes reinstalling everything.

Oh how I wish my husband would get off his butt and finish fixing the computer. I got one of the best pics of Momo the other night. And I have tons of great pics and video of her I want to share, but can’t until he finishes reinstalling everything.

Well, I am looking forward to Momo pix she is soo beautiful!

Today would have been my mom’s 54th birthday. I was crying while making a post on FB. She has been gone for almost 2 years. the loss of her woke something up in me. I’m going to devote my life to helping women and making sure they get their yearly exams and are taken seriously by their doctors. I don’t want any daughters losing their mothers to ovarian cancer. It maybe unrealistic, but I want to be there for them. I have walked their shoes and that is my purpose in life.

I saw your post, Chacha – it’s very touching and I’m sure your mom would be so proud of what you’ve decided to do . I don’t think your goal is at all unrealistic…my own motivations for my career path are partially based off my experiences with cancer too.

This morning, I went in to give Huckles her morning pellets. She jumped around and binkied and dashed, like usual. I assumed that happy show was for the pellets, but when I bent down to put the bowl down, she sat beside me and purred. The happy was for me! 😀

Thank you Peppy I currently cannot find my umbrella and waterproof backpack. Urk. Well, I better just suck it up like a true Washingtonian Jk jk. I at least have a waterproof jacket.. meh.

HuckleBERRY is like a cat She isn’t a rabbit!!!

LMAO She does remind me of Garfield. She is fat and lazy and only mildly affectionate when she is being manipulative.

Chacha, you can send some of that rain this way! We have a class called “Wilderness retreat” which involves a weekend spent in the Texas panhandle on one of the prof. ranch. We do whatever kind of art we want there. Well, it was cancelled this year because the area is so dry that they fear we will all catch fire and die. >:-(

I just talk to my mom and apparently our dog ran off while my dad was out hunting.  I’m so worried about her, she’s just such a sweet little baby   And honestly, and I am SO angry with my dad, this happened once before with a different English Setter and we she was finally located three days later and 100 miles away in Canada, and yet he doesn’t have Annabelle micro-chipped in spite of my incessant nagging to do so.  Not that I would say that to him and my mom and the moment, but it just makes me mad knowing that this might have been averted. I’m so worried about my little bug that I can’t focus on anything.  I wish I could hlep find her.  So vibes for Annabelle’s safe return.

<<<>>> I hope they find her in good health!!!!

vibes that she returns soon!

Just dropping by to say hello!

-Charcoal

I hope your parents find Annabelle soon. Poor puppy!

Awww I am so sorry to hear that! I hope she returns home soon! Dogs have made some amazing voyages to return home.

Chacha – I don’t think losing a parent ever gets easy, especially when you were very close to them. I lost my dad 10 years ago in a car crash. The other guy was driving recklessly in near blizzard like conditions, with a suspended license and no insurance. He lost control, flew across a 70 foot highway median, and hit my dads car. That man lived of course, but took two innocent lives that day. The other was the passenger in that mans car. That is why reckless driving is one of my biggest pet peeves. And I will tell people my story. About how somebody else decided my life was not worth having a father in it.

Just hanging around. I wanted to go to a protest rally today but no one wanted to go with me. So now I feel bad because I let that keep me from going.

Thank you for the support everyone

AH, I don’t wanna go to work this morning -____- Hello 11 – 8 shift. *puke*

Yay!!! My dad finally found Annebelle this afternoon! My poor little Belly Pup (my weird little nickname for her) was running around in the woods all alone all night long  But now she’s home and cozy and safe and getting lots of snuggles and treats! So thanks everybody for your support!

My little Belly!

Awww, she’s beautiful! I just love setters.

My dad’s family used to hunt with beagles and if one would run away they would leave a jacket or piece of clothing in the woods and would always find the dog snuggling in the jacket the next day. I’d be too nervous to let a hunting dog run around out of my sight!

I’m with you Elrohwen, if it were up to me my dad wouldn’t allowed to take any of the pups out hunting. I worry about them getting lost, other hunters, them getting hurt just from running over or into something sharp, all kinds of things! Occassionally I consider sneaking them into a suitcase when I’m home and puppynapping them. But, it’s not my choice so I try not to think about it. However, my dad already ordered a GPS collar for Annebelle and promised to take her to get microchipped. Right now she has a collar that beeps but if she gets too far away he can’t hear it. Plus I think the beeping collar seems sort of mean just on the grounds that it’s incredibly annoying and I really wouldn’t want it around my neck.

I keep flipping to the live coverage, I wish I was there. At the same time though, it is very depressing and all seems hopeless. Oh gosh, that sounds really downer-ish, doesn’t it?

 Yeah! Im glad they found Annabelle, and she is beautiful! 

My stepdad used to raise hunting dogs. He gave it up though after his favorite, Eddie, finally died from a tumor. I dont think he ever wanted another dog but they found a pit puppy on the highway and rescued it. A year later, they are still trying to find his home  but in the meantime, they are calling him Eddie-Two. 

I have an interesting project for class to think about. I get to make a podcast for my future class room. So, if you were in a 9th grade art class and had to listen to a weekly podcast, what kind of topics would you like to hear about or what style of podcast do you find interesting? Any and all help is appreciated!!!! 

Bawww doggeh! I’m really glad for you that she’s back again…can’t imagine what it would be like to be missing one of my fur babies .

So I’ve been living in my new place for about 2 months, and finally got around to a bit of decorating! Bunny-themed, of course . I’ve had the idea for a while, but 8×10 prints are kind of expensive…then last weekend, I just happened to randomly stumble upon a 40% off photo prints sale at Walgreens, so I decided to go for it!

Neat Peppy! Are they in clear frames or did you just stick them to the wall?

I love Walgreens photo specials XD I printed 90 photos for $4.00 baahahah! Chacha scrapbook!

I just stuck them to the wall…thought about frames, but 12 frames would start getting pretty expensive. I don’t have my bunnies with me, but it makes me happy to look up and see my babies from my desk .

I have a general question I wanted to throw out there, maybe you all would have some ideas. There is an issue that I feel very strongly about. It is something that is very volatile and it is of high profile (at least where I live). I am not a very confrontational person, so I feel really helpless. I am afraid to jump in with the protests and rallies or go to the meetings being held by a local group. It is also a subject that comes up in my classes during discussion, but I am afraid to really speak out about it. Since we are supposed to keep things light here, I won’t go into too much detail. I was just wondering what I could do to be involved without stepping too far outside my comfort zone?

I really hope that I get the Halloween weekend off. Two of my coworkers have taken it off and got it. I have given a month notice – and my mananger tends to give people their time off.

Cross your fingers for me ladies >_______<

My dad and I were talking about Thanksgiving. We won’t be able to go to Olympia this year due to my dad’s car problems. So we’ll have a turkey here at home. Thanksgiving lands on CHACHA BUN’S 2nd birthday!

Me: What should Koucha eat?
Dad: A salad
Me: HAHAHAHAHAH WITH CRANBERRIES!!!!!!!!! (craisins!)

My dad has been asking me questions about Chacha and he asked if she is a teenager still. I told him that she is considered an adult now, and at 5, she’ll be a senior bunny and will be needing blood work done every year after that.

LBJ10 – You could always help “behind the scenes”. If you contact the group I’m sure there would be some way you could help without putting yourself out there too much.

Tate – I tried that smoothie you posted way back on the first page. I loved it! I’m terrible at eating breakfast so I’ve been drinking a version of it every weekday morning. It leads to a lot of O.O looks and “what are you drinking?” type questions.

Bunnies are doing great and still haven’t really noticed Ben, my brother’s rabbit. He’s going in to get neutered next week as my brother never had it done. Don’t judge him too harshly he’s been in and out of the hospital for the last year and it’s been hard for him to do anything due to the nature of his illness. My whole family has been pitching in. Doing his grocery shopping, etc… He’s going in for the first of three surgeries next week as well. If everything goes according to plan he will finally be back to his normal self. It’s been super hard for him being sick. He has always been really active.

My husband started classes yesterday. He’s an EMT Basic going back to school to become a Paramedic. Work is getting crazy for me. Dealing with some major contract changes leaves me way too busy for my liking. Hectic times ahead! Reminds me of why I love having animals. Spending time with them after a long day is the best stress relief.

Hannah has now outsmarted DH twice! Every time he tries to change the gate on the stairs to make it easier for us to step over, she manages to get over it. Last night she jumped it and sprinted up the stairs before I could stop her. This morning, she jumped it again and I woke up to find a bunny in my bedroom. Haha. She is persistent! I think she’s realizing that we don’t want her up there because it’s pretty easy to herd her back to the steps now.

Oh, I forgot to mention in my other post – I’m sort of considering a foster situation. I haven’t wanted to foster before because I don’t want to end up with a bunny for years. Also, I don’t live near any rescues at the moment, so there would be a 1.5hr drive to get the bunny back to the shelter for events or to meet an adopter.

However, the shelter I used to work with sent out an email asking for a 6 month foster for a lop bun. The owner is struggling to find a place to live and her mom is sick of looking after the rabbit. It even said that the mom would put the rabbit to sleep if nobody would foster (which just sounds ridiculous). I’m tempted because it’s only a temporary situation and I won’t have to shuttle the poor bun all over looking for adopters.

DH is against the idea because he thinks he’ll get way too attached and not want to let the bunny go. I guess we have some talking to do.

Ripley – That’s true. I just worry since the last time I was doing stuff for a group, they wanted me to cold call people and ask them to call their local congress person. I don’t like “telemarketing”. LOL

I just love peeking around the corner and seeing Leopold so vigorously grooming Wooly that Wooly’s head is rocking back and forth. So cute!

LBJ10 – I understand not wanting to call people, but when they ask you, explain that you dont want to do that. Maybe you have a bit of a social anxiety? I do! I find forums like this great because I can feel a little less odd about talking to people. When they ask you to do something like that, maybe you can say “Im uncomfortable making calls, but I’d be happy to make signs or stuff mailers.” You know, suggest your services in the less “in the public’s face” and more “behind the scenes”. They will always push for you to do more but you can set those limits yourself. Maybe one day you will be more comfortable with it!

Does anyone out there do watercolor painting? I am taking my first class in it and I am awful at it! Its so stressing and making my day not go well.
I didnt start the day out very well to begin with though. I hate to hear people argue, it really causes my stomach to cramp up and I just get anxious. My new neighbors are ALWAYS fighting and they were doing it first thing this morning in the bathroom that is on the other side to my bathroom. It made my morning shower less than comforting. I just want to go over there with a sharpie and thump them both on the head and tell them “If youre not happy, change your situation but stop messing up my comfort zone!!!!”

Ugh, I am not a happy camper. I’ve been trying to move these wafers for two weeks and they were just sitting there. I asked so many people and nobody could figure out what the problem was. Apparently, all I need to do was send the wafers back one operation, then send them to the correct operation and the system decided it knew what to do. Gah, so stupid! It’s such a glitchy thing and we’ve been looking for the actual problem for two weeks now when it was some little software trick you just have to know.

At least those stupid things are moving so people will stop emailing me about them. Haha

wafers would not last 30 minutes on my counter…  damn, now i want some cookies

Haha. I used to make wafers like those, now I make wafers like these:

I much prefer my current job, but sometimes I do wish the wafers were edible!

Huckleberry – I don’t have problems talking to people, I just don’t like confrontational situations. I had people screaming at me over the phone that they “don’t want to save the whales or the pandas”, not that that is what I was calling about but you get the idea. I get flustered and I will turn bright red, which isn’t a good thing when you are trying to argue something or promote something. I could totally help them make promotional materials though. I am pretty crafty.

Elrohwen, what is your job?

Hehehe, my friend just showed me this…made me giggle

Oh how I love the medical system and the way they try to force things on you. Since I was a teenager I have had trouble sleeping. Finally I am at a breaking point and talked about it with my doctor again. Last time I brought it up to him he tried me on a sleep medicine, which did nothing for me. So this time he sent me in for a sleep study. Which btw is the worst nights sleep you will ever get in your entire life. Turns out I have a moderate case of sleep apnea. (never saw that coming) What sucks is that the sleep doctor says it is caused by my weight. Just an FYI, yes I know my weight is an issue I am making good headway on getting under control, but I have had trouble sleeping since way back before I was the size of a house, so shut yer trap. I think it may have something to do with my deviated septum and chronic nasal issues, and my jaw is misaligned. Sooooo I go back for a second test to try out a CPAP machine. At the end of the test they are like “Ok now if you just sign here we will set you up with your $3,000 equipment and you will have it in a few weeks”… Whoa whoa whoa back the heck up! 1. I hated that machine. 2. I want to talk this over with my husband and normal doctor and see if there are other treatments before I make that kind of investment. 3. I am going to be between insurances for the next couple months, and I am not about to pay for that on my own. To say the least I was very displeased at that assumption.

/rant

Posted By Huckleberry on 09/29/2011 05:35 PM
Elrohwen, what is your job?

Huckles, I work as a manufacturing engineer for computer chips – we make the chips in all of the gaming systems and for servers, among other things.

Joyfull, my dad has sleep apnea. The machine saved his life. He is a little overweight and is losing some weight right now. He sleeps a hellvua lot better o_o

Joyfull, I have to say that 99% of the time, doctors aren’t trying to force something crappy on you, they are trying to HELP you. I interview doctors for a living, and the one major complaint most of them have is patients not getting the care they need. They aren’t just trying to get your money, they are trying to make you better.

Here is something stupid that I”ve just read on my facebook:

A facebook friend got a rabbit for her daughter. They got rid of it, beceause someone told them that blue eyed rabbits are aggressive. Apparently, the rabbit did not want to be held. WHAT THE HECK???

Joyfull- I totally agree! I absolutely cannot stand doctors. Sometimes I feel like they just throw drugs and diagnosises (sp?) at me until one kinda sorta works. I’m seriously trying everything I can so that I don’t have to go back to one… Haha

The thing is – doctors aren’t perfect. They are still learning like any other human being is. We expect doctors to be perfect, when they are just like one of us.

Exactly the reason to not go to the doctor’s. People usually get fired when they don’t do their jobs correctly. Haha. And it’s not okay for them to just throw whatever drug at you and see if it works. That’s extremely dangerous and serious problem in the US. It’s ridiculous with what they can get away with now. That’s not saying there aren’t any good doctors. Some are extremely good at what they do- but it seems like they are few and far between.

And I definitely know that I have a chip on my shoulder- a lot of it is from my own experience. I’ve had every diagnosis in the book and my medical file is pages and pages and pages of failed this and failed that. But I’ve also noticed that doctors now are totally apathetic. I went to see one a year ago and I said “I’m tired all the time and sleep 15 hours a day, I have headaches every morning… I just feel like crap” and the doctor had the nerve to actually say “well there’s really nothing for ‘tiredness’. You’ll have to deal with it. Not everyone is perfect”. o_O
My grandma is struggling right now and living in a nursing home. She went into cardiac arrest a few months ago and the doctor didn’t attempt to save her. Why? “She’s old and she’s dying anyways, so what’s the point?” OH I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were ruler of the universe and got to decide who was worthy of life. -_- Can you even imagine? I KNOW people here would have thrown a fit if that happened to their RABBITS. I just will not trust the medical community. I’ll fix myself, thank you very much. Haha.

Tate, I take offense to your post. That is why I said Doctors are still learning even when they get out of medical school. There are a few medical workers on this forum, including myself that know we are going to make mistakes. We learn from them and strive to do better.

It is your choice not to go to the doctor and that is fine.

Tate, did she have a DNR?

No she did not. She wants to live. She’s a human. Old, but human.
I didn’t mean to offend you, Chacha. Just please, as a medical professional, don’t go out of your way to kill people and put people down. People in the medical community are here to help, not hinder. There is a reason that the hippocratic oath, while not at all totally relevent, is still taught today. There is a disturbing lack of respect for human life. And honestly, I can’t actually believe that you would go so far as to put me down and make me feel THIS bad. Awful. Everyone deserves help. Just because my family isn’t in the top rung of society, just because we are sick, just because we don’t always know what to do… We still deserve to be helped. SO, before my blood ACTUALLY starts boiling (it’s getting there), I’m going to go workout.

ETA: FL’s- feel free to delete my posts… I think you should see them in context though. I didn’t mean to offend anyone and didn’t feel as though my opinions were out of line. But now I’m deeply saddened by this.