Month: February 2013

Introducing Ted Nougat

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I’ve been feeling bummed without any animals around to take care of other than the dog who isn’t a cuddler, so I started thinking obsessing about getting another hamster. There’s a huge Petland by the IKEA we like to visit which has all kinds of hamsters in open cages which means they are handled often and tend to be much tamer than the ones at Petco (where the notorious Oreo came from), so we made plans to go there this past Saturday with E. That morning he woke up with a tummy ache so we didn’t go. I didn’t feel too great on Sunday myself, but I wasn’t going to let that stop my mission, so we got to IKEA when they opened to partake in some seriously cheap breakfast, walked around the store to kill some time, and then arrived at the pet store just as they opened. This little guy was the first hamster we picked up.

Nougat

He was so soft and cute – I knew I had to have him! Plus some little girl was eying him in my hand and I wasn’t about to lose him to a 9 year old.* He’s my first male hamster and even though his face looks a lot like Oreo’s he doesn’t suffer from her bitchy personality. Sticking with the food names I decided to name him Nougat because he’s a sweet teddy bear hamster, but his official name, since it’s hilarious, is Ted Nougat. For only $9.99 you could own your own hamster too. ;)

Nougat

So far he’s loving the wheel in his 20 gallon aquarium. I don’t think he had one in his cage at the pet store so he’s making up for lost time by running in it constantly when he’s awake. Bella is fascinated by him and will lay and watch him when he’s in his play pen. It’s so cute! She’ll also follow him around in his hamster ball but if he starts coming her way she’ll quickly move as if scared of him.

* The girl was really sweet, though; I helped her and her mother learn a bit about hamsters as they were going to buy two since they didn’t know they couldn’t be housed together, among other things.

Not broken but sick

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I don’t think my toe is broken after all because it’s no longer red and doesn’t hurt very much. I think perhaps I just bruised it real good. So that means at the age of 37 I still haven’t had any broken bones. :)

I am, however, sick. I woke up with a sore throat a few days ago but nothing too bad. However, yesterday I turned into a sneezing, nose running and eye watering mess. I was up half the night coughing up phlegm. Blech! I also went through an entire box of Kleenex since the right side of my face just leaks all over the place. It’s a good thing I just replaced my broken master bathroom garbage can to dispose of all the Kleenex. ;)

Weight Loss, Recipes, Broken Toes, and Computers

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My computer is finally back online after having to reinstall Windows a second time within two days. The first time Windows Explorer kept crashing whenever I’d access the Quick Launch toolbar so this time around I didn’t bother setting it up. I’m trying to get used to using the “pin to start menu” option since the end result is essentially the same.

I’ve made it under the 130 lb mark! I actually made it over a week ago but didn’t want to post until I was sure it wasn’t a fluke. I’m down about 5 lbs since leaving my job. I’d like to lose another 10 lbs before pool weather comes around.

I’ve been trying new recipes lately that I find on Pinterest which is my new obsession. I could browse pins for hours! I tried a banana bread recipe yesterday which sucked but today I had success with three new recipes: Nutella brownies, broccoli cheese rice casserole, and cheeseburger macaroni. The brownies are super rich, plus they cost a lot to make from scratch, so I’ll probably stick to the box mixes even though they came out good. The casserole was frickin delicious, and the cheeseburger Mac was really good with a nice spicy kick to it.

I broke my little toe today; the middle one on my left foot. After I was done working out I pulled down my shorts and “kicked” them off, slamming my foot into the dresser in the process. Ouch! I’ve never had a broken bone before but Joe is convinced it’s broken based on how it looks compared to broken toe examples online. All I know is it hurts like hell and makes me limp but it’s not going to stop me from going to IKEA tomorrow because I’ve been looking forward to it and I really need a new garbage can for the master bathroom (the old one cracked in half).

Goodbye Kitties

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Both foster cats are gone. Skipper was adopted on Saturday and Myagi is at a new foster home as of yesterday.

After Skipper was adopted Myagi was very restless and unhappy, meowing constantly, including all night Saturday into Sunday which resulted in little sleep for us. We took him to a weekend cat show in the hopes he’d be adopted but unfortunately he wasn’t. Other cats were adopted, however, freeing up room for him to go to a new foster home that has other cats since he’s happier when he’s not alone. His new foster mommy is keeping me updated on him, including texting me photos which I appreciate. I will miss both kitties but not the mess they made, the time spent cleaning up after them and socializing them, not to mention worrying about what they might destroy.

This experience has taught me that I’m not as much of a cat person as I once thought. At least in the respect to having my own cat. I am too nervous about letting the cats have the run of the house and keeping them in the master bathroom wasn’t fair to them or to us. I had to carry them downstairs daily since I didn’t want them getting loose in the master bedroom as that is a designated cat-free zone to help keep my allergies at bay. It worked pretty well until Saturday when suddenly my eyes were super itchy, my nose was runny, and I kept sneezing. At first I thought it was a cold since I only experienced that reaction the first day we had the kitties but it promptly went away on Sunday once Myagi was gone.

Needless to say I’m a bit relieved and am feeling much better. I spent the entire morning cleaning the master bathroom, including washing the bathroom rugs, as well as shampooing the couch. You should have seen how dirty it was, not to mention how much cat hair was on it even though I vacuumed the heck out of it yesterday.

I would like to continue helping the rescue organization in other ways so I’m in the process of discussions with them as to what that might be. I may even foster again once a spare bedroom is available since it will be more room for the cats and I can just open the door and let them out when necessary which eliminates the need to move their food, water, and litter-box (another thing that had to be done with the setup we had).

Speaking of litter, that stuff gets everywhere! I was vacuuming it up daily. Also, I don’t understand how people can go a week without cleaning their cat’s litter-box. I was cleaning ours daily and probably could have done it twice a day given how many “presents” the kitties were leaving.

The timing of this change worked out well since my new hard drive was delivered today and I will no doubt be preoccupied the next few days reinstalling software and configuring everything in an attempt to get things back to normal. Plus I am studying to become A+ certified in the hopes that I will have a better chance of getting a tech support position at the library should another opening arise.

Sucky Wednesday

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Well, it seems the hard drive in my not yet three year old computer is failing, and by that I mean it has pretty much failed and I will be lucky if I can retrieve the data I hadn’t yet backed up from it. Surprisingly, I’m not freaking out too much. It is what it is.

When I turned on my computer yesterday and heard the repeating clacking noise coming from the tower I knew right away things were not good. I logged off, rebooted just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke, then shut down. I went online to hunt for an affordable replacement which I found at NewEgg for $70. The drive should be here on Monday so in the meantime I’m relegated to getting my Internet fix via my iPad and iPhone. It’s not horrible, but it really is easier using an actual computer for everything other than casual web surfing. I can’t edit or post any photos taken with my SLR, track our finances (I use Excel), and some content just can’t be viewed on a mobile device (someone explain to me the reasoning behind certain YouTube videos being blocked on mobile devices – these days that seriously hinders the number of views you’re going to get). Many apps for services aren’t fully functional (I’m looking at you, Facebook, although you are getting better) making an actual computer a necessity instead of an option. In other words we still have a long way to go before we can forgo buying actual computers or laptops altogether. I would like my next computer to actually be a laptop but I can wait a couple of years to make the switch since by then my desktop will be really outdated.

In other sucky news, we received a letter from our mortgage company yesterday letting us know that as of February 15th they will no longer be our mortgage company because they are bankrupt. The letter was dated February 6th and stated all payments made after the 15th need to go to the new company. Since I had a payment pending for the 20th I logged into my account to cancel it. I then went to the URL provided for the new mortgage company only to be presented with a “coming soon” page. Are you kidding me!!?!? You give people less than 10 days’ notice and the new company doesn’t even have a functional website to make a payment? Wow. I feel like we’re in for some real headaches with these clowns. If I wasn’t currently unemployed I’d be shopping for a new mortgage company.