Ch-ch-changes! ... Melissa gave me crabs.

Yeah, a few things happened this past weekend that I haven't posted about. First of all we got six new pets. Yes, 6; in the same weekend, even. (It's not as crazy as it sounds... I'll explain in a moment). The other change is my mood... and I think it has a lot to do with one pet in particular. Another change would be in my perspective; also because of this one li'l fella. So now to explain what I'm talking about...

A friend of mine from way back in the day wrote me and asked if I wanted some hermit crabs... Nick and Shadow had both been hinting that they wanted some hermit crabs for a while now so I was like, "What the hell. Yeah." I had some hermit crabs back in the day and they were pretty cool. So my friend Missy gave me two hermit crabs on Saturday.

Later that day Brooke from Critters (the bestest store ever, btw), called me up. She said that a lady (Janie) had a puppy in the store that she wanted to give away to a good home - Janie's husband had found him under a bus at work earlier that week and they couldn't keep him. Brooke told me that the little guy was pretty much housebroken and really sweet and that she would like for us to come and look at him. So we did.

On the way to the store, though, we were discussing how we didn't really want a dog inside the house and how we didn't want one outside since we don't have a fence yet (our house is pretty close to the road)... so it didn't really seem like the best idea to go looking at a puppy just yet. But, we figured what was the harm?

So we got to Critters, I met Janie, and she was holding the sweetest-looking little ball of fur. She said that they had been calling him Scooter and that he was really no trouble - he's mostly trained and doesn't get into anything. He was a pretty laid-back kind of guy it seemed. Do I even have to say it? I wanted him. So I asked Nick what he thought and he said he liked him, too. He was all, "I guess he could stay inside until we get a fence" and I agreed. I was so relieved - I was worried that one of us would want him and that the other wouldn't. That would've sucked.

Well anyway we didn't take him home Saturday... we wanted to think it over and make sure that we could accommodate him. I got Janie's number and told her I'd call. Before I go any further Shadow has been begging, (pitifully, I might add) for a puppy. He's wanted one that could stay in the house and be his friend. We were pretty much opposed to that since we didn't want one in the house. We'd discussed getting a big dog that would keep people out of the yard once we had a fence, so this was kind of sudden and really unexpected. But the more I thought about it the more I kept thinking that that little sweetie was perfect for Shadow. Come to find out Brooke had the same feeling - that's why she called! Her calling, btw, made me feel really nice. I liked that she was looking out for us and I felt really happy knowing that she must really believe we take good care of our pets. That made my day.

... So I call Janie on Sunday and ask her to meet me back at Critters with Scooter. We took Shadow because we had planned to each pick out another hermit crab to go in the tank with the other ones... but we didn't tell him that he might get a puppy, too. I just wanted to let him meet Scooter and see what he thought first. He seemed to like him so I explained that he needed someone to take care of him and if he promised to do it then we could take him home and let him stay in the house (at least for now). He looked SOOO happy. He just started grinning from ear to ear. So then I let Shadow pick out some of the things we needed for him.

Anyhoo, so far things are going well. Shadow loves Scooter and it's really nice for him to have someone to play with. Scooter has really turned out to be well-mannered and not much trouble at all. Now that he's made himself at home he tries to chew a lot of things, but usually a stern "No!" is enough to make him stop. (Hey, I think that's pretty good considering he's probably teething). He's only peed in the floor twice and I blame myself for those two times. I just needed to get in the swing of taking him out to do that. He doesn't bark (unless he passes by a mirror) or cry so he's not a bother to have around.

Other than that we don't really know too much about him. We don't know what breed he is or his age, exactly. Brooke guessed that he was about 8 weeks old and that maybe he has some basset hound or something like that in him because he is long-ish and has short legs. He also looks like he may have some chow in him because he has purple on his tongue and poofy-looking fur (it's really super-soft, though). Also his face reminded Brooke of a german Shepard... so in essence we don't know anything for sure. All we do know is that he's part of the family now. Don't worry, though... I'll put up a picture soon and you all can try to help me figure him out.

... In summation:

3 crabs (one each for me, Nick, and Shadow)
+2 crabs (from Missy)
+1 Scooter
-----------
6 pets this past weekend and a lot of happy for Blu. 😁

Until next time...

A month and 1/2 of heaven and hell.

Seriously.

A few hours ago I came home to a horrid sight. As I was coming down the street towards my house I realized that I could not see it (my home, that is). It was covered in leaves which were attached to a limb big enough to be a tree by itself. It had fallen on my roof. So naturally I FREAKED OUT. That's just what you do, you know. So I got out of my car, stopped thinking, and started shaking. I couldn't find my keys to get into the house (they were still in the ignition of the car), I had my cell phone out and was pressing numbers frantically - trying to call someone (though I couldn't tell you who I thought I was calling), then finally I started crying. I found my keys, got in the house, and called my dad. I couldn't even talk. I just started squeaking and crying and my dad sounded really concerned. So I shut up long enough to tell him what was going on and he said he would come over.

Well, dad came, the neighbors were there, my mom showed up, and so did my brother and one of his friends (Cade was here on a four-day leave with a friend and they both ended up helping out). I called my insurance agent and he said to get the limb off. I went around taking a bunch of pictures first and then we all got to it. So it's off now and the roof isn't damaged as badly as I'd dreaded it being. My dad's gonna help me fix it (he's a carpenter with roofing being one of his strong points) so that's a good thing. I'm really glad that's over.

I have to say that I still love my house and owning a home. It truly is a nice feeling. There's freedom to do what you want, credit and equity to build, and a nice comfy place to call your own. I love it, but I have not had an easy start.

• The oven still doesn't work (luckily I don't have to pay for that to be fixed, though).
• Someone broke my back windows - pretty purposefully, I'd say... one hole looks perfectly round like a little bullet of some sort and the rest looks like it was done with rocks or a ball or something... 
• And now the limb. Not to mention the whole tree falling in the back yard, (which didn't damage anything, but an annoyance nonetheless - we still haven't moved it), and another big-ish limb that fell in front of the garage.

*sigh* Hopefully, nothing else will go wrong.

Graduation

So... it's official that I'm the mother of a big First Grader now. 😀 Graduation was fun - they sang and danced and it was adorable. 😊😍 I laughed and cried through the whole thing. The only drawback to that was that NONE of my pictures turned out. They're ALL blurry and that makes me sad. 😞 But, if all goes as planned one mother at the graduation said that her husband had filmed it (hopefully at least the song and dance parts) and that she'd make me a copy. Her kid was in Shadow's class, too, so maybe there will be some good shots of my boy. He danced his little butt off today. 😁

It's Monday & I'm pooped.

Well, I hope to keep this one kind of short so I'll just get to it. Thursday I had to pick up Shadow from school because he was sick and that's pretty much lasted until now. Over the weekend he seemed to get better with a little TLC and Tylenol so I sent him to school today and ended up having to go get him again. 😐 I took him to the doctor and he had a temp of 102.8°F and strep throat. 😕

He had to get a shot. Ya know he's 6 years old, but that still doesn't stop me from getting all teary-eyed when they have to do that. It sucks. 🙁 Also I felt really bad for him already because one day this weekend I closed the car door on his head. He knows not to get out of his seat belt until he's told to do so and we were in a parking lot about to get out and a car was trying to park right by me so I closed the door... Unfortunately, Shadow had decided to stand up and stick his head out right about then. I didn't see him until it was too late. 😭

He has a bruise and that's all. I felt terrible (and will probably have nightmares for a while), but that's just one more reason why kids should listen to their parents. I probably could've killed him if I'd closed it harder and I told him so. I don't think he'll be doing that again. I truly hope not.

Anyway, since he was sick this weekend he slept a lot. So I had time to get one more room sort of situated. It's the front room - the room you walk into when you come in the front door. We have a lot of the animals in there and I think it looks pretty nice. It could still use a little work, but it's fine for now. So... that leaves 3 rooms to finish. They will probably not be completed anytime soon.

On to the pics.

This is our porch type area. I like it out there. 😄

If you look to the left after you walk in this is what you'll see. (It's where the gliders and the parakeet live).

If you keep looking around you'll see Shadow's desk (complete with a hedgehog on top )(who, btw, is rather cuddly - or at least tries to be). 😍

The chameleons' fancy setup.

And finally: the mantle with a bunch of random stuff on it such as: the Matrix box-thing, a lamp, and a shark fin and hand print that Shadow made, and his cap & gown pic. SO cute!! 😁

And that's pretty much that room. It's not perfect, but it's better than being crammed full of ugly boxes and stuff. I'm pleased... at least for now. 😄 And exhausted so I'ma go. LOVE!!!

Check these guys out!

 The gerbils in their new and improved bachelor pad (they now have an upstairs and downstairs). 😁

I think they like it a lot!

Why I haven't blogged in over a week...

So this is why I haven't blogged in a while... I've been busy this whole time trying to get the house in order. I'm still not done - nor do I foresee that being the case anytime soon as we still have a few rooms to go. But here are some pics of the rooms that ARE done (or are at least mostly done). 😃 First up is... the kitchen! Yeah it's still not perfectly in order, but you get the idea.

Next is the bathroom... I don't really know what all I could do to it, but here's what it looks like anyway.

Next up is Shadow's room...

And Shadow in his room...

Well, I guess as I finish the other rooms I'll put up pics of them, too. But so far that's my progress. Ok, I guess that's all for now! Later!

I'm way too damn old for this...

I'll just jump right in... we went to the Crawfish Boil in Birmingham today and it was... hmmm, what the hell do I even say? It had it's ups and downs to say the least. 😳  Quite an adventure, yes.

First of all I didn't get to eat before I got there so needless to say I felt like I was practically starving when we finally made it in... but to my dismay the smell once we were inside the gates was absolutely PUTRID. 😧 Anyway, I do NOT like the smell of most seafood and especially not the smell of hot, rotten seafood. *gag* What's worse is that the dead li'l crawfish littered the ground so not only was there the smell of fishy death, but the look of it, too. 😭 Well, that turned my stomach and it took me a good few hours to be ok enough to eat. *sigh* Not a good start.

So anyway the first two bands to play kind of sucked, but they were somewhat local so whatever. Then up was Jason Mraz, and I enjoyed that. He was like a cute li'l songbird... he made about as much sounds as he did words. That was fun. Then up was the Presidents of the United States of America (P.U.S.A.), and I absolutely LOVED them. 😁 They had tons of energy, and were funny, and had really good music. I swear, in one song about a cat, they made me laugh until I cried (not that that's hard to do), but anyway, that was good. I might post the lyrics to that song at the end of this blog...

Anyway, I think it was during the Presidents' show that the crowd started to get a little rough. People were all jumping around and stuff (which was not too horrid, I guess), but the crowd-surfing WAS. I got kicked in the head and that pissed me off. 😠 Well, the next person that came around on top of the crowd got dropped which I thought was hilarious (and what he deserved for being a dumbass), but he ended up between me and Nick so I promptly snatched him out of the way. There was one more guy to do that (I'm pretty certain during the Presidents' set), and I don't know what came over me, but I just started hitting him. I was pissed.

Up next was Better Than Ezra (who were not better than anything, btw...), and they thought it would be fun to encourage the crowd-surfing. 😠 Well, this one girl came over once and I slapped the back of her once she got on the ground... then she came around again, but I could not reach her... then she came around AGAIN and I fucking grabbed a hand full of her hair and pulled it as hard as I could. I was so angry at her! She screamed "Owwww!" and I thought that was funny. Yeah, I don't care if I'm evil ... that was reckless and stupid and those idiots could've crushed me. I made it a point to show my negative appreciation.

Moving along, P.O.D. played next and they really got the crowd rowdy. I hate to say it, but I was honestly scared. People were jumping hard and pushing and crowd-surfing like crazy. I truly did not want to end up crushed and dead and stinking on the ground like the tons of crawfish I'd seen all evening. I barely saw any of that show due to the fact that I ended up having to close my eyes and bury myself in the warmth and softness that was Nick in order to calm myself (I'd begun shaking and sweating uncontrollably - some sort of panic or anxiety attack, perhaps?).

Toward the end of that show it starting raining a little. Then Live came on and it rained pretty much through that whole show off and on. AND IT WAS THE LONGEST SET OF ALL. 😐 After standing on the spongy, stinking ground for about 9 hours and getting rained on and being scared out of my mind throughout the last few bands I just wanted to leave. But Live drug on and on and they didn't even put on a very interesting show. The singer guy took off his shirt and gyrated for a bit, but he's getting a little fat so that wasn't even awesome (although to hear the crowd scream, you'd think it was spectacular). *shrugs* Oh well

In summation you probably think my night sucked. Well, parts of it did. But I love going places with Nick and making memories... and the fact that I survived it made it an adventure. ... Also, I have to admit that I like it when he gets all protective over me - and at shows like that he usually does. On top of all that I did discover a band that I thoroughly enjoy (P.U.S.A.), which is one that Nick is really fond of, also, so that's cool. All in all, I'd say it was $12.00 well spent.

Well, that's all.  Here are the lyrics to the song "Kitty" (the one that I thought was so funny) by the Presidents of the United States of America. They have a myspace page so you should check them out. They're GREAT!

"Kitty" by The Presidents of the United States of America

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow

Little bag of bones been out all night

Little bag of bones been out all night

Kitty, you're scratchin' at the screen door

Kitty, you're scratchin' at the screen door

Little bag of bones been out all night

He needs some pettin' and lovin' on his head

He needs some pettin' and lovin' on his rain-soaked hide

He's circlin' round my ankle

He's circlin' round my ankle

He needs some pettin' and lovin' on his hide

Oh kitty, won't you come inside

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I want to touch it

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow

Pussy purrin' and lookin' so satisfied

Pussy purrin' and lookin' so satisfied

(Lost in his little yellow round die?)

(Lost in his little yellow round die?)

Pussy purrin' and lookin' so satisfied

Kitty up and scratch me through my jeans

Kitty up and scratch me through my jeans

Fuck you, kitty you're gonna spend the night

Fuck you, kitty you're gonna spend the night

Fuck you, kitty you're gonna spend the night

OUTSIDE!

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it

Kitty on my foot and I want to touch it

touch it

wanna touch it

wanna touch it

wanna touch it

wanna touch it

wanna touch it

Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty

Touch it!

Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty

Touch it!

Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty

Touch it!

Kitty on my foot and I want to touch it!