Animal Updates

I’ve got a lot of different animal news and decided to cram it all into one post. Some of it’s happy, some is sad, some is painful and splattered with blood.

So go get a cup of coffee, or your favorite beverage, and settle in. :)

I’ll start out with the sad news and get it out of the way. Jenna’s sweet mouse Jerri passed away unexpectedly a little over a week ago. She was happily running on her wheel one night when we went to bed, and the next morning she was gone. We have no idea what happened.

Jenna was understandably upset, partly because it was so unexpected. With tiny pets like mice, gerbils, and hamsters, they often get sick or injured and pass on before you even know there’s a problem.

Dealing with death is part of being a pet owner, and a portion of my role in teaching my kids responsible pet ownership is showing them how to balance their grief with the joy and love they received from their animal.

So John and I consoled Jenna, packed Jerri’s body lovingly in a box, and Jenna picked a place in the yard to inter her remains.

After the initial shock and grief wore off, we asked Jenna what she would like to do. She decided that yes, she wanted another pet, but not another mouse since no one would be able to replace her baby Jerri. We did some researching, then took a trip to the pet store where Jenna decided to adopt a male teddy bear hamster.

His name is Sunny.

She’s had him for about a week now, and she’s been really good at taking him out every day and working to hand tame him. He’s a little skittish, but one of the girls at the pet store had a soft spot for him and had already worked with him quite a bit. So he’s not as bitey as you’d expect a young hamster to be. He nibbles on fingertips occasionally, just to see if you’ll react, but if you remain calm and undeterred he settles down pretty quickly.

Jenna is completely head over heels in love with him, and while she still misses Jerri, Sunny has helped take some of the sting out of her loss.

Speaking of hamsters, Bullet is still doing well, he’s fat and happy as long as you don’t try to pick him up.

Every once in awhile I let him out to roam the house in his hamster ball, which he likes, but he’s happiest in his tank. I would love to be able to pick him up and cuddle him, but it’s just not going to happen. He’s still a lot of fun to watch though! He often comes out during the day to play, and I’ll sit on the floor by his tank and talk to him while he scurries around. He’s not afraid to take treats from my hand, and will let me pet him in his tank and long as I let him keep his four on the floor.

This is the only new picture I have of Zathras…

It’s pretty terrible because John took it with his cell phone when I was staying with Tiana at the hospital in May. He sent it to me in the middle of the night to let me know my baby missed me.

Both Tiana and Jenna had been telling their classes about our hedgie, so as an end of the year treat I took him in so the girls could show him off.

He was surprisingly well behaved! I was a little worried about how well he’d do with all of the kids touching him, but he did an outstanding job! He let everyone give him a pet, and only put his quills up once when a shadow startled him. He got a little over stimulated with the kindergartners, and was looking for a dark place to hide. All in all he exhibited model behavior though, no huffing, no balling up, he was just a good boy and gave the kids a great experience.

I’m so proud of my baby boy!

That’s about it in mammalian news, now it’s on to the reptiles. All of you squeamish sorts can turn back now. :D

So onto the Boas!

I had them out for a photo session on a sunny day, but alas they did not turn out well. I’m going to have to figure out the trick for taking pictures of these guys. I know there’s a way to capture their sparkly rainbows, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

Here’s the best of the lot:

That’s Nena, the female, and I have a story to tell you about her!

I was writing up this story in my head last night as I was falling asleep, and I realized that I need to preface it with a disclaimer (and yes Melinda, I thought of this before you commented on my facebook status. lol).

Animals aren’t mean. Humans are sometimes mean, but not animals. Animals just do their thing, they have instincts and behaviors that are coded into their genetic makeup, which ensure their survival. Often you will hear people talk about a mean or aggressive dog, but the truth of the matter is a dog gets that way because of something a human did to them, or didn’t do for them. Aggressive dogs are typically fearful because at some point they were neglected or abused. They are never just mean for the hell of it.

Animals always act the way they do for a reason, and if we humans get hurt in the process of handling them it’s usually through some fault of our own. I mean think about it, how many times have you heard a narrator on Animal Planet say “and here we see the lion killing a gazelle because it’s an a**hole.” Never, right? It just doesn’t happen. Lions kill and eat gazelles in order to survive. If you own a lion, and it tries to eat you, no one is going to say the lion is evil, it’s just acting like a lion is supposed to act.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’m sure you know where this is going. lol

The boas are aggressive eaters. They strike, they strike fast, and they will strike at anything that moves when they’re in feeding mode. Feeding mode starts when I put them in the feeding bin. They have yet to strike, or bite, at me when I’m getting them out of their containers or handling them. They know as soon as their bellies hit the bin though, food is coming. Then the aggression pops to the surface.

I know they’re like this. I’ve fed them a few times, and dodged a couple of feeding strikes, so I know how they are when they want food. Does that make me any less of an idiot? No, it does not. LOL

For some reason my feeding tongs have disappeared. They get run through the dishwasher after each feeding session to disinfect them, and they usually end up on top of the microwave when they’re clean, but for some reason they were no where to be found last night. I have a backup pair, but they had migrated to the basement for some reason and John was off in search of them.

Well, I had already taken Nena out and put her in the feeding bin to be weighed when I realized that the tongs were MIA. She was getting restless, so I figured I’d just do what I’d done with the corns a few times and dangle the mouse by it’s tail for her.

Error in Judgment #1: Mistaking a Boa for a Corn Snake.

So I dangled the mouse above her head a couple of times and she went to grab it. I let go of the tail as soon as she smacked into the mouse, but she didn’t grab on, and the mouse fell to the bottom of the feeding container.

None of my snakes will eat a food item that’s just laying dead on the bottom of the container. so she retreated to the other side of the container and glowered at me.

Error in Judgment #2: Believing that I’m faster than a Boa

I thought, “Hey, I can just reach in there and get it, she’s on the other side and even if she does strike I’ve dodged her before.”

So I reached in only to learn that I am in fact NOT faster than a Peruvian Rainbow Boa. She tagged me, right on the knuckle of my left index finger.

My hand was moving faster than my brain and I realized she was on the move, but not that she’d bitten me, so I tried to dodge her.

Error in Judgment #3: Not taking my punishment like a man

When I pulled my hand back, she came with, tearing open the bite on my knuckle and landing on the floor outside of the feeding container when she finally let go. Now I had a pissed off boa loose on my floor. Lovely!

Error in Judgment #4: Thinking I could pick up one pissed off Boa and put her back in her container without paying the price.

I grabbed her before she could get away, saw her turn towards me with her jaw opened wide, and knew I had it coming. She bit me full out on my hand and I took it without flinching this time. Ok, maybe I flinched a bit when she started to chew, but I didn’t try and shake her off or dislodge her. If she hadn’t let go on her own in a timely manner I’d have taken her to the sink and doused her in cold water. That will usually do the trick.

She did let go though, after about a minute, and curled up on my palm like she was ashamed of what she’d done. I felt bad for her, it was totally and completely my fault. She was off her food for the night though, and no amount of coaxing would get her to strike again. I’ll try to feed her once more in a couple of days. Hopefully she’ll have forgotten the whole miserable incident by then.

Ready for my battle wounds?

I have a bruise there today. I think she might have left a tooth inside me, but I can’t find it no matter how much I dig.

Top side of the knuckle wound.

And lastly, the chew mark which looks the worst but really didn’t hurt that bad.

I have 6 small holes from her top jaw, and 4 from her bottom.

Hopefully I’ve learned a valuable lesson that I won’t soon forget! lol

Last, but not least… This is now, officially, my first year as a corn snake breeder! I’m pretty nervous but so far the snakes have done well in spite of me. I actually wasn’t going to breed this year, I didn’t feel like I was ready yet, and I didn’t know if the females would be up to size, and I wanted to do some more research… Are you getting the feeling that I was never going to be ready? lol

Kauket took the decision away from me though. She started getting cranky, and then refused a meal (which she NEVER does). So I talked to Chad and he told me how to check her for egg follicles. Sure enough, my baby girl had become a woman. Then Amaunet got in on the act, and decided that if little sister was old enough to get a man, so was she. I told them that as long as they were willing to share, we could work something out.

Yea I know… EWWWWW

Kek is still too small to breed, though he should be up to size next year.

Isn’t he pretty though? That picture does not do his color justice! he’s all pinks and lavenders. I think when Chad saw him he was a little jealous that he gave him away! :D

Here’s him just hanging out (Get it? Hanging out?!?! I kill me!).

So he was out of the gene pool this year for breeding, though I know that he and Kauket are going to make gorgeous babies. So Chad loaned me a male that he wasn’t using for breeding this year.

Chad doesn’t name his snakes, so we’ve dubbed him StudMuffin. I told Chad that from here on out he must refer to him as StudMuffin, and only StudMuffin.

Yes, I know. I need psychological help! John and the kids tell me that on a regular basis.

So Muffin was willing and eager to get started. He was a newbie though, so he had a couple of false starts. After about an hour or more of him chasing Kauket around the tank he finally figured which end was up and got the job done.

This is a still from a video I took for Chad, hence the quality. It shows the moment of lockdown. I would have taken a real picture, but with it being their first time and all I didn’t want to completely freak them out.

Now I know that some of the normals who read my blog probably think this is a little weird. I’m sure it smacks of parents observing the bride and groom on their wedding night. Trust me when I tell you that corn porn is all the rage on the forums where I hang out. Yes, I fully admit that we’re a “special” bunch of people, but that doesn’t mean we’re gross or anything. I promise to make the one explicit picture I have to show you small, that way only the most curious among you will be able to see anything when you click on the pic. lol

Here are the two lovesnakes cuddling in the afterglow. Aren’t they pretty together?

Now, Chad can correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe that Kauket is a motley, het hypo, possible het lavender. Muffin is a hypo, possible het lavender and possible het motley. If they both prove out we should get:

• 37.5% Hypo Hatchlings
• 37.5% Hypo Motley Hatchlings
• 12.5% Hypo Lavender Hatchlings
• 12.5% Hypo Lavender Motley Hatchlings

That last one is the trifecta. That’s what we’re shooting for!

After Muffin had a day or two of rest, we popped him in with Amaunet. He’d had some practice this time around, and it didn’t take him nearly as long to figure out what he was doing.

Here’s the explicit picture below. Don’t click on it unless you REALLY want to see what it looks like when snakes do their thing. You’ve been warned, don’t say I didn’t tell you!

Now this pairing is just going to give us normal corn snakes (what a corn snake would look like if you came across it in the wild), unless of course Amaunet has some hidden genes we’re not aware of. Normals aren’t too sought out among the breeding community (though these ones will have a ton of hidden hets), but they’re still very pretty snakes, with all of the personality of a captive bred corn, and are great for first time owners and/or people who don’t care about all of the fancy colors and patterns. Most of the pet stores in my area don’t sell normals and only have more expensive morphs available. So I’ll be selling the babies from this pairing to the local stores for credit, and they’ll be able to offer some cheaper alternatives in their reptile departments.

Now even though their babies won’t be higher end morphs, don’t those two look pretty together? I love the contrast of the two of them… So beautiful!

Anyway… Chad’s boy did his thing and now my girls are very preggers (or gravid for my snake friends). Both of them are starting to cloud up with their pre-lay shed, and we should expect eggs about 12 days after that.

Once the eggs are laid, the girls job will be done and mine will start. They have to be incubated at a certain temperature and humidity for about 60 days. Then they will start to pip and we’ll see little snakey noses pushing through the shells. I’ll be sure to keep you updated with pics as we go along!

Have a great day!

Just stuff…

I was playing around in my Twitter account today, and finally remembered to add Dawn from Because I Said So (funny, funny blog if you aren’t already a reader) to my Twitter feeds. As I was reading through her posts I followed a link, not knowing that she was setting me up on a new addiction…

Blip.fm

Basically it’s like musical Twitter. You can DJ your own stream, listen to other people’s stations, or get a mix of everyone who’s playing music. It’s really cool and you should go and sign up now! I’ll wait for you to get back. :D

That was easy now, wasn’t it? Now add my station to your favorites: StormRose That way I can find you and add yours to mine! Then we’ll be Blip friends and all will be right in the world.

Yea, I know my musical tastes are a little eclectic, going from Disturbed to Eva Cassidy, but if you can believe it I’m one of the tamer ones in my family.

Next subject…

Last week I posted a graphic I made for TommyD, and I wanted to show you another bit of recent Photoshop work I created.

The snake forum I hang out on has seasonal contests for photography and photo manipulation. I decided to throw my hat in the ring for the last one, and entered a little snaky valentine.

What you’re looking at is a composite of three different pictures. The first is the background with the red tag laying on it. The second is the heart shaped box, and the third is a picture of Kauket when I first got her (she was so tiny). To fit the love theme a little better I also took her markings and changed them into hearts (click on the picture to see it full sized).

It’s a good ‘chop, not perfect but mine rarely are. :D It did well enough though. I took first place in the photo manipulation category (out of two entries LOL), and won myself a gift certificate to get a new baby corn snake from Dakota Corns. Now I just have to wait for Breeding season to swing into gear so I can pick a hatchling.

Kek is about ready to move up into a 20 gallon tank, so the baby will take his old 10 gallon. Then it’s no more for me until Kauket has her own babies next year. I’ll probably allow myself to keep one of her beauties so that I have a grandchild, the rest will go to Chad to place in new homes.

Speaking of the snakes, I’m going to see if I can get some new pictures for you in a couple of days. All of them shed last week, so they’re looking gorgeous in their schmexy new skin. They ate last night though, so I have to wait for them to digest.

Next subject…

As of last Saturday we’ve officially had Zathras for a month. It’s amazing how much he’s changed in that short time. He’s bigger for one, and now he’s fully quilled. When we first got him his quills were pretty sparse and you could see patches of skin between them. Now he has a pretty thick blanket of quills that bristle out in a cactus-like way when he’s feeling particularly grumpy.

He still hasn’t taken to his exercise wheel, I moved it lower in his cage last night though so maybe he’ll start using it if it’s easier to get in and out of. He also still sleeps a lot, but it’s ok. We’ve bonded and now he’ll sleep on my lap when I take him out for play time. He’s adorable when he’s sleeping. :)

Last subject…

If you already follow the Creative Dreams blog you can skip this part because you already know. lol

I finally got some of my digi designing mojo back, and I released a new kit in the store last week. It’s called Aliens Among Us, and despite the fact that making it felt like pulling teeth, I’m actually quite happy with it. There’s a freebie add-on up on the CD blog, so go snag it if you enjoy digi scrapping.

After I made the kit I needed to make a sample page to go up in the store, and that was hard. I don’t have many pictures of CJ when he was little (due to the circumstances of my divorce), which made me sad. I did manage to find a more recent picture of him that worked well enough though.

I’m not sure he appreciated the sentiment, but I like how the page turned out. lol There are also some really cute pages that my creative team made up in the preview section of the store. Be sure to go take a look because wow are those ladies some talented scrappers!

OK, that’s enough out of me for today.

Hugs,

Snake Bite!

The other day I was reading some bite stories on the corn snake forum I peruse, and I was smugly thinking to myself that in 4 years of keeping my three snakes, I’ve never been bitten… 

Perhaps it’s because I keep them well fed…

Perhaps I just have really friendly snakes… 

Perhaps it’s my exceptional handling skills…

 

You know what’s coming, right?

 

That one, right there!  He’s the culprit!  Oh sure, he looks all sweet and innocent with his baby face and his big bug eyes, but don’t let him fool you.  He’s what they refer to as a hateling, or a cornobra.

Kek is squirrelly, he has been since we got him which isn’t all that uncommon in hatchlings.  He doesn’t really like to be held because, well… I’m a giant and he’s not much bigger than a pencil, you’d have reservations too.  For the most part I leave him alone; he’ll calm down when he gets older and bigger. 

I do have to take him out for feeding time though.  He gets weighed, and then he gets to nom on a nice juicy mouse.  That’s the deal, and usually it’s not a big one.  Sometimes I have to chase him around his tank a bit (they’re really fast when they’re that small) to get him out, but it’s no biggie.

Until I got smug that is…

I put jungle gyms in all of the snake tanks to encourage them to climb and exercise, and Kek LOVES his gym.  He’s constantly up at the top pretending to be an Amazon Tree Corn, which can make things a little dicey when I need to get him out for feeding time.  He wraps himself around the bars you see, and I have to pry him off to get him out while holding onto his squiggly little body.  It’s kind of like a juggling act, except the balls want to get away really badly, and they’re pretty ticked at you.

So last week I take a deep breath and dive in, holding him in one hand while trying to unwrap his very strong tail from the gym with the other.  Now I don’t know if he was really mad, or if he just decided that I smelled awesome, because the next thing I know he’s unhinged his jaws and is trying to eat my thumb.

I know you’re all going to ask if it hurt.  The short answer is no.  Not one little bit.  In fact, I’ve had showers that hurt worse.

Look at him, does he look like he could inflict any damage?  He may have startled me if he were bigger than an earthworm, but he’s not so instead it was pretty laughable.

It didn’t take him too long to realize that the meal he was going for was slightly too big for his stomach and he let go.  While he was distracted I did manage to get him off the gym, so thank heaven for small favors.  He looked at me with a “What?” kind of expression as I put him in his feeding container, and then happily munched down the correct food item.

Yet he wasn’t finished with me.  One chomp was not enough.  Oh no, I had been way too conceited about my snake handling skills, so I needed to be brought down a few pegs.  He tagged me again as I moved him from the feeding tub back into his tank.  Just a quick nip on the side of my hand to remind me that I’m not all that.

It’s ok, he’s cute so I’ll keep him, and just like a snotty teenager; this hateling phase will eventually pass.

Hugs,

Snaky Pics

We’re back, obviously or I wouldn’t be posting. Tiana did great, and is happy to be home healing where she’s most comfortable. I don’t think the cat has left her lap since she parked herself on the couch.

I got home from the hospital Tuesday night and saw that Amaunet had shed. She didn’t get it all off on her own again, so she had to soak for awhile in the bath, but now she looks all pretty in her shiny new skin.

I promised you some updated pictures after her shed, so here they are…

Here she is hanging out in her tank. The metal thing to the left of the picture is her jungle gym. She’s gotten so much use out of her gym, she loves to climb up it and hang out at the top of her tank.

In this picture you can get a good look at her mouth. When I first got her she had two sores right on the edge of her lips. I was a little concerned because mouth rot is something that can be harmful to snakes, but decided that since she was eating well I wasn’t going to borrow trouble. Well, as you can see in this picture, those sores are completely gone! Yay!

Here she is out of the tank and on a pretty background that shows off her colors.

I took a bunch of pictures of her and posted them on a corn snake forum to see if anyone could help me ID what kind of snake morph she is. The general agreement is that she’s a caramel or a normal het for caramel. I was surprised that no one even mentioned hybrid because that usually gets thrown into every ID thread on the forums. I think that after showing her around and getting a vast majority of "”caramel” ID’s that I’m pretty comfortable saying she’s a full blooded corn now, or at least has way more corn blood in her than rat snake.

Does it mean a lot to me if she’s a hybrid or not? No, not really… It’s just nice to know for the sake of knowing.

Here’s the last of them I have to share with you. A close up of her cute little face blowing a raspberry at me. :)

She really is a sweetheart… Kauket is still my girl, but Amaunet is the hands down favorite among the kids. They just adore her. She’s a lot of fun to play with and watch though, so I guess it’s no real surprise.

Speaking of Kauket, she’s currently in shed so we haven’t seen a lot of her. Kek shed a few days before Amaunet, and now it’s Kauket’s turn. It’s funny how they’re all shedding at about the same time now.

I have meals thawing for the two that have new skin, but I’m going to make Kauket wait until she feeds again. The problem isn’t so much that she’s in blue, but because she’s in blue she hasn’t gone to the bathroom, so her belly is still pretty full from the last feeding. I’ll feed her as soon as she sheds and takes care of business. :)

So there you go, pretty pictures of my new baby. You can comment now and tell me how much better she looks! lol

Hugs,

Disturbed and Disgusted

And not just from the Disturbed concert we went to this weekend, though it was AWESOME!!! 

It was freezing here on Friday, below freezing actually, –25F here in the tundra.  We knew parking was probably going to be an issue at the Rave, especially since not only was Disturbed playing in the Eagles Ballroom, but Red Jumpsuit Apparatus was also playing downstairs in the Rave.

We did manage to get a decent parking spot about a block away after getting stuck in traffic and driving around for awhile, but it was still too cold to go in without Jackets though we did try to brave the cold.

The concert was fantastic though, worth the very uncomfortable walk to get to the club.  Disturbed sure knows how to put on a good show.  John got me and the girls T-shirts and we all wore them out the next day when we went to get our nails done.

But that’s not why I’m blogging, and not why I’m disgusted…

You guys all know how much I love my cold-blooded friends.  My snakes are my adopted children and I do everything I can to make sure their lives with me are quite comfortable.  I even got them these grid things for their tanks to use as jungle gyms so they can get some exercise.

Kek uses his to wedge himself in the seam of the tank lid to hide from me.

So a year and a half to two years ago a new reptile store went in just down the street from us.  We checked it out when it first opened, but never went back.  A few times we saw the owner when we were out and about.  We’d say “Hi” and chat a bit, then go on with our lives.  He seemed to be an OK guy, but was a touch flakey and liked to smoke an alternate form of tobacco if you get my meaning.  So not really the kind of person we’d choose to spend any time with.

On Friday when John came home from work he told me that he thought something was up at the store down the street.  He said there were three animal control cars there.  We gave each other a raised eyebrow, but didn’t think too much more about it because we were busy getting ready to head up to Milwaukee for the concert.

Well Alexi came home from a friend’s house today and told us that we HAD to read the paper.  The guy down the street got busted in a national news kind of way.

Here are a few excerpts from the local news article:

The owner of an exotic pet store was taken into custody Friday after city officials found dead, malnourished and illegal animals in his store.

“The conditions are filthy, disgusting, you can smell death walking into the building,” said Cindy Steinle, of Small Scale Reptile Rescue in Milwaukee, one of the agencies called in to help.

Police spokesman Sgt. Bernie Kupper said Friday afternoon they had recovered five to six alligators, a boa constrictor, a gaboon viper (which are illegal to be kept as pets), dead fish, iguanas and some geckos.

Many of the reptiles were emaciated and nearly all were dehydrated, Steinle said. Some were kept in Tupperware containers, Kupper said. Some were in the store and others were in the basement of the building, which officers said was about 40 degrees.

An alligator was housed with turtles with its mouth taped, Steinle said. One of the crocodile cages had no water and two dead crocodiles.

Here’s the full article if you’d like to read it: Pet store owner in custody after dead animals found.

I’m beyond upset to know that this was going on just down the street from me and I had no idea.  Not that I could have made any difference if I had known, but I could have at least gone down there and reamed him a new asshole.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people are utterly unconcerned about the ramifications of their actions on others.  Those poor animals… To be caged and then starved/neglected to death.  Thinking about their misery just makes me want to cry.

The surviving animals have gone to shelters and local rescue groups.  There they will do their best to try and give the poor creatures a chance at a better life.  All are malnourished, and many are sick with parasites and other illnesses.  At least they’re in the hands of people who will do the absolute best they can for them.

If you’d like to help out with the rescue efforts you can donate to Countryside Humane Society in Racine Wisconsin and/or Small Scale Reptile Rescue.  Also, if you’re looking for a great pet, consider adopting one from either of these wonderful organizations.  Mistreated, abused, and neglected animals are the ones who need your love most of all!

 

OK, off my soapbox now.  :)  One last note to let you know that Tiana is heading down to Shriners in Chicago tomorrow for another adjustment surgery.  If all goes as planned we should be home by Wednesday, but don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for a week or two.

As always, we’re so appreciative of all the good thoughts and prayers you’re sending our way for an incident free surgery, and quick recovery.  This would be so much harder for us if we didn’t have the outstanding love support of our friends and families!

Love and Hugs,

Snake Rescue

I guess I’m running a safe house for wayward snakes now.

For those of you who read this blog and aren’t friends with me on Facebook and/or don’t visit the CD forums, I’d like to introduce Amaunet.

We think she’s a Carmel Corn snake, but Chad (our snake breeder) is sending her picture to someone who can confirm that for us.

Here’s her pitiful story…

Snakes are easy pets to own. The smaller species don’t take up a whole lot of space (corns can live out their lives in 20 gallon tanks quite happily), they only eat about once a week and go to the bathroom only after they’ve eaten. Some snakes don’t even like to be handled and are purely eye candy; corns do like human companionship, but are happy with a snuggle once a week before you feed them. They don’t even require that much housekeeping. I scoop out the soiled bedding when I see it, and do full bedding changes every 3-6 months.

Piece of cake right?

Despite the ease of care, there are still people out there who buy or acquire a snake for a pet, and for whatever reason tire of it. In the worst cases these snakes die from neglect. Sometimes they’re freed into the wild; which in some climates is acceptable (snakes aren’t domesticated animals, they can live just fine without human intervention if they’re in the proper climate) but not in Wisconsin. Often they’re dumped at the Humane Society or pet stores where they have a better chance of survival.

This is what happened to Amaunet. She was left at a local pet store, half starved, freezing cold, and stuck in a shed that she was too weak to deal with on her own. Not having a snake expert on staff, they put her up for sale without realizing she was in dire straits.

Lucky for her she was about to meet up with a family who had a clue.

I took CJ to the pet store yesterday to pick up a heating element for his bearded dragon. We’ve been having a heck of a time keeping Roland’s cage warm enough in the frigid Wisconsin winter. So, armed with Christmas money we went in to get a more powerful heat source. His new ceramic heather makes his cage so nice and toasty warm that we all wish we could climb into the tank with him.

As we walked back to the reptile section we passed a cage precariously perched on a stack of boxes. Inside a little hidey hole peeked a cute yellow head watching us walk by. Seeing the familiar lines of a corn snake, I stopped to take a closer look. What I saw made me want to cry.

Her skin was flaking off her in patches (normally when snakes shed their skin it comes off in one continuous piece, but sometimes when it’s too dry it will flake off and the snake needs a good soak to loosen up the dead skin), and she was way too skinny. The sign said she was four years old, and came with all the equipment for a bargain basement price.

I talked to her a little bit while the kids wandered around the store, and saw she was alert and responded to me as I crooned to her though the glass. I was worried about her to say the least. I was really worried that someone without any experience would buy her and not know what they were getting into. She needed special care if she was ever going to flourish again.

As we left the store I picked up my cell phone and called John. Partly to commiserate, partly because I hoped that maybe, even with all of our Christmas spending, there was enough left in our bank account to save her. There wasn’t, which I expected, and after sharing my worry with the guy who understands me I took the kids home to make our own pets more comfy.

I have pictures of her though, so you know it’s not the end of the story. :)

It turns out that John did a side job for someone, and got paid for it shortly after my phone call. When he came home from work he brought with him a new snake baby to add to our family. He knew I’d worry about her, and he has a soft heart too (no matter how obnoxious he gets on the outside), so he made a stop after work.

He’s a good guy.

Right away we pulled her out of the tank to start getting her warmed up. I’ll admit I had a moment’s hesitation as I went to stick my hand in there. In her hungry state should could have made a strike at me, hoping I was food, or she may be holding a grudge against the human’s who cooped her up and then refused to feed her. Willing to take a bite if I had to, I scooped her up and found out quickly what a sweetie she is. She immediately wrapped herself around my arm and settled into the warmth. Her tongue was out, smelling everything around her, but she was happy to snuggle with me as I started to clean out her tank. Once John came and took her, she found the ultimate warmth around his neck and never wanted to leave that spot.

I got her cage cleaned out and disinfected, then I put her to soak in a tub of warm water to get all of the nasty dead skin off of her. The problem with a bad shed is that it will start to suffocate the healthy tissue underneath. Kauket has had a few bad sheds because of the dry air in our house, so I know how to help her remove it so that she doesn’t get injured. I have no idea how long Amaunet sat in her old skin. It came off pretty quickly after a soak, but there was some permanent damage on her tail where the tissue died. In a few weeks the tip of her tail should fall off, and then she’ll be good as new.

The next pressing concern for her was food. I have no idea what she’s been fed in the past, frozen or live, but we feed frozen mice to our snakes. So I crossed my fingers and took out a mouse to thaw for her. A lot of times if corn snakes aren’t raised on frozen mice they’ll refuse them, I hoped that she was hungry enough that she wouldn’t care.

Turns out I was right. She took the mouse and ate it right down. Her initial strike was a little weak, but since it was already dead there was no struggle for her to eat it. If someone had put a live mouse in the cage with her, she probably wouldn’t have been able to take it down in her weakened state. She may have even been fatally injured by the mouse, which can even happen to healthy snakes sometimes.

After a bath and a good meal we put her back into her warm tank and let her settle in. If a snake can look happy she looked radiant!

Above is a picture of her body after her bath but before her meal. Do you see the sharp line of her spine? That’s not supposed to be there. However, once she has a couple of months of eating well, that line should disappear.

As I was typing out this post I got a call from our breeder. He heard back from the guy in Texas with some not so good news. There’s a possibility that she may be suffering from something other than starvation. The other breeder recommended a drastic course of action, that I’m not inclined to take at this point in time.

For now, she’ll be quarantined (away from our other snakes) and watched. Hopefully though, for this poor girl who’s had such a rough life already, the only thing she’s suffering from is neglect.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Hugs,

Re-Vamp!

I noticed today that this blog was looking really tired and worn out. I hadn't noticed before because I neglect my personal blog horribly... Poor thing.

So I spent some time giving it a fresh new look. I'm not so sure about the 4 column layout, but I've spent a ton of time messing around with it already today so I'm not changing it anymore. I'll either get used to it or it will bug me so much that I'll feel compelled to fix it in a month or two.

Provided I don't forget that I own this blog again. :D

If you check out the center column you'll find feeds to all of the blogs that are involved with Creative Dreams! If you're into digital scrapbooking AT ALL be sure to check them out! You'll find tons of freebies and information at those sites.

Since it's been so long since I've updated anything around here I thought I'd bore you to death fill you in on some stuff.

My new little snake baby is settling in quite nicely. He eats like a pig and spends most of his time hiding out in his tube, but he doesn't jump anymore when I stick my hand in the tank so I figure that's progress.

We named him Kek, fulfilling my personal requirement that all snakes in this house be named after Egyptian deities. Turns out that the goddess Kauket had a consort who's name was Kek. Since they're destined to be man and wife once he's old enough where he's no longer jail bait (or in Kauket's mind, food), I thought the name was fitting.

Speaking of, it's been a very long time since you've seen a picture of her (unless you're one of my Facebook friends), and I finally got some good ones of her a couple of weeks ago.

She now measures in over two feet long, and about as big around as two sharpie markers. She's a gorgeous girl and she knows it; she spends a lot of time posing as my necklace.

So, now for some non-snake related news...

Um...

I don't think I have any.

John started his own blog recently. I finally brow beat him into it persuaded him that it might be a pastime he would enjoy. He really likes pin-ups (nope, I'm totally not bothered by that) and has been forming a lot of contacts in the modern pin-up world. Now I'm not talking porn here, I'm talking pin-ups. Pictures that are tasteful but show a femininity and sensuality. I tell you, these modern actresses and models need to learn that they don't need to buy the farm to get some milk. Women can be extremely sexy with their clothes on!

So anyway, if you'd like to check out some modern day pin-up girls, and also read about some of the great causes they're involved with, check out John's new site:

My Favorite Pin Ups

As for me... I've been putting a lot of time into my Digital Scrapbooking and working on Creative Dreams. If you haven't been there in awhile you should drop by! There are a lot of new things in the store, fun stuff happening in the forum, and goodies on my blog. That's the business blog where I don't talk about snakes or half naked women. :D

Until next time, when I once again I remember I have a personal blog...

Luv ya,

So much going on...

Ok, yea, I know... It's been a really long time since I've blogged, but in my defense, I have a lot going on right now...

The big news is that I'm leaving The Angel Company to start my own stamping business! I'm excited, scared, and sad all at the same time. Sad because I hate to leave TAC behind, they're a great company and my time with them has been wonderful, scared because this is a risky venture with a lot of responsibility. Excited...

Wow, I'm so excited! My new company is going to be carrying some awesome stamps from some really talented stamp artists, These stamps will really get your creativity working in overdrive. I know they sure gave mine a boost! And products... Oh my gosh! We have so many awesome products from some of the best companies out there!

The card above was made using one of the great new sets we'll be carrying. It's from an independent stamp maker in Canada, and she's been a real pleasure to work with. Her company is called Pink Cat, and we'll be carrying her entire line! Her designs are a little whimsical, and a lot of fun. I'm sure you're going to love them!



Tiana
A lot of people have been asking about Tiana, and how she's doing. She's doing great! She'll be getting her brace off in a little less than a month, and is pretty much back to normal. She's starting to get tired of wearing the brace, and we have to keep telling her to slow down and behave during the hour a day that she can have it off, because she wants to dance, and twirl, and play during those brief moments of freedom. She's no longer in any pain at all, unless she gets bumped in the spots where her rods are while she has the brace off.

You can see the spots where rods attach through her skin, they're just lumps alongside her spine. They look a lot better than her twisted spine did though, so you won't hear any of us complaining. Her incision has completely healed, and is just a red line that I'm sure will fade to almost nothing when she gets older.

We've already scheduled the first lengthening for July. That will be a quick surgery, but she will have to stay overnight in the hospital. They say that she'll recover pretty quickly from it though, and that it will be more uncomfortable then painful. She's not dreading it, since she knows that the worst is over for awhile.


Kauket
I've had quite a few people ask how miss snakey-poo is doing as well. She's doing great too! She's eating well and growing quickly! She's almost outgrown her 10 gallon tank, and has more than doubled in size since we got her. She's still small though, just a baby still, and has quite a bit of growing left to do.

She's really a sweet thing, she's a great pet to have. During the day (when she's normally sleeping) if I take her out she'll curl up in my pocket and sleep there. In the evening, when she has a little more spunk, she'll wrap herself around my fingers and wrist like a piece of exotic jewelry, and will explore anything and everything that comes close enough while I'm moving around. She's pretty content to hang on for the ride though, and will stay put as I do things.

The kids just love her, even the girls who weren't keen on the idea of having a snake for a pet, and CJ's even taken a turn at feeding her. I won't share the pictures I've taken of her eating (to spare the squeamish among you) but I did catch one of her resetting her jaw after a meal that is a favorite of mine.



The kids laugh when she does that because it looks like she's yawning really big! :)

Despite the big mouth, she has the sweetest temperament, and has never made a threatening move towards any of us. Even when Jenna pets her a little too hard, she's never made a strike out of fear. I know snakes squick a lot of people, but I think Kauket is one of the best pets I've ever owned. In fact, when she out grows her cage in a few months I'm probably going to get a Hognose snake. Hognoses are smaller than Corn snakes, and can live their lives in a 10 gallon tank. They're also diurnal, so I'd have someone to play with during the day while Kauket is sleeping.


So anyway... There's business news, Tiana news, and snake news. You should be all caught up now. :D

Have a great day!

This and that...

I'll put headings in here, so that those of you who don't care to hear about snake news can easily skip right over it. :)

Kauket (aka Ms. Snakey-Poo):

Kauket has been eating really well since we finally got her to eat a live pinkie awhile back. The only problem is, she will only eat live food. This is an issue for several reasons:

1. Live pinkies are really hard to come by. We have to get them from our breeder who lives about an hour north of us. You can purchase adult feeder mice from a pet store, but Kauket is still smaller than a magic marker, so she's not big enough to eat adult prey yet.
2. Live prey can actually hurt a snake. Seems hard to believe, I know, but adult mice have teeth and claws, and if they're upset enough they can gouge out a snake's eyes. Not really something you want to see happen to your lovely pet.
3. I just don't want to feed her live mice. I know it's a natural process and all that, blah, blah, blah... It still squicks me out. Did you know that a pinkie mouse who's no bigger than a dime can scream loud enough to be heard 20 feet away when a predator grabs it? It's disturbing to be completely honest. I'd much rather feed her something that can no longer object to being eaten.

So off and on we've presented her with frozen pinkies, only to have her literally turn up her nose at the offering and slither away. Who knew snakes could be so pretentious?

Well, between the snowstorm last week and our breeder's love of hunting (what is up with that Chad?), it's been a little over 2 weeks since Kauket has eaten. She was starting to show that she was not liking the starvation diet the other day when she began striking at her own reflection in the glass of the tank (I never said that any of my pets were smart). Watching her do this we thought that it might be a good time to try a frozen pinkie again. So off John went to get another "Gourmet Rodent" from the pet store, and we tried once again.

Once again, she snubbed the food. Picky, picky, picky, she's starting to act like one of my kids. Well the breeder had told John to smack her around with the thawed pinkie to try and upset her enough to strike at the food (I know it sounds abusive, but sometimes you need to use tough love on your kids), so he did just that, and after about 10 minutes of being whacked in the face with a dead mouse, she finally got mad enough to eat it.

YAY! No more pinkie squeals! Thank heaven for small favors.

The Cuttlebug:

I'm loving my Cuttlebug! I had a couple of people ask me about some of the techniques I'm doing with it, so I thought that this would be a good place to explain them (rather than in the comment section of my ASB gallery).

First off is the embossing folders...

On this money card Sue asked how I managed to isolate the saying from the rest of the saying in the A2 sized embossing folder.

The truth is... I didn't. :D

For this card I used one of the small 4 packs of embossing folders. It's the "Congrats" set, and it has 4 small folders with different congratulatory sayings in it. I found that I can place the small embossing folders on a portion of a larger piece of cardstock, run it through the Cuttlebug, and all that gets embossed is the part that's supposed to be embossed. It doesn't leave a residual line where the folder hits the cardstock, which is really nice. So it expands the useability of the embossing folders even more, in my opinion.

The next thing that I've been asked about is embossing with brass stencils, Fiskar's texture plates, and other different things, and the answer is: YES, you can! I took some old computer mouse pads, three to be exact, in different thicknesses. Then I cut them all down so that they would fit through the Cuttlebug. Now whenever I want to emboss something that's not specifically for the Cuttlebug I use the A and C plates, along with my mouse pad embossing cushions to build a sandwich that fits into the machine.

The sandwich should be built with the A pad on the bottom, the plate or stencil next, cardstock or paper on top of the stencil, mouse pad embossing mats, and last but not least the C plate finishes off your embossing sandwich. It should be difficult to turn the crank to feed it though, but not impossible. That's how you know you have the right thickness.

It works really well, and you're going to be embossing all sorts of fun stuff before you know it. Try bits of lace, or pieces of ric-rak; punched pieces of cardstock, or chipboard shapes make fun embossing tools as well. Look around your house, and I'm sure your imagination will take off! :)

Have a great day!

A snake by any other name...

Ms. Snakey-poo (who’s currently trying to find a way to escape her cage—good luck with that) finally has a name. So which of the aforementioned names did we decide upon? None of them.

Since she kept her dinner in her stomach, where it belongs, I decided the time had come today to make a decision; or at least narrow down the field. I wasn’t terribly keen on any of the names that were in the running, so I went on a hunt looking for a name that was more suitable. Something exotic and colorful, a name that wouldn’t sound as if it were intended for a pampered cat, a cuddly puppy, or worst of all a pet hamster.

I had found the Ancient Egyptian name Kepi (meaning tempest) before, which I thought was on the right track, so I started my search looking through the Egyptian pantheon…

I have an insatiable interest in Egyptology. The lure of digging in the hot Egyptian sands is what led me to pursue a degree in Anthropology and Archaeology. Of course I think every Anthropology student has a love of everything Ancient Egyptian, it doesn’t take a student long, however, to learn that it’s nearly impossible to get a position working on an Egyptian dig. So dreams and desires confront reality, and new ones are formed. In my case, when I’m lucky enough to get back to school, I’ll pursue a career as a Biological Archaeologist, and study human remains found on dig sites, and if I’m really lucky those sites will be located in Mexico and South America. So dreams change, but the love remains, and Egypt will always hold a place in my heart.

Anyway, back to snake names… The Ancient Egyptians had more gods and goddesses than you could possibly imagine. They had a deity for every animal, emotion, career, and occasion. Part of the reason was because their empire lasted a very long time, and mythology grows with the civilization it’s attached to. Another reason for the plethora of deities was that any time the Ancient Egyptians conquered another nation, in order to smooth the transition and prevent unrest and upheaval, they just added that nation’s deities to their own pantheon, associating some with established Egyptian deities that had similar mythology, but in a lot of cases they just added the new god or goddess to the ever expanding list. People could also become gods themselves, Pharaohs and their wives were living gods on earth, but priests and priestesses could also obtain that status as well. Take approximately 5000 years of stacking up deities in this manner, and well… Let’s just say the heavens are full at night.

So I knew that if I searched for “Egyptian,” “snake,” and “goddess” I’d find at least one name to add to the list. So I did just that and the first site on the list provided this little blurb:

Pay dirt! Four Egyptian goddess names to choose from with just one mouse click. So I thought about the names and picked the one that I thought best suited my slinky little nocturnal baby.

Now I decided to circumvent the inevitable debate (argument) with my two oldest children and name her without their agreement. She’s my snake after all, and I don’t feel like waiting until they come back home on Monday only to have them boo and hiss at my choice, and ultimately draw out the snake’s naming even longer because none of us can agree. So instead I made a sticky note, and stuck it to the snake’s tank for them to read when they get home. It says:

Hello,
I’m the Egyptian primeval snake goddess of darkness.
My name is Kauket
Now go ahead and complain to your mother.

It won’t do them any good though, what’s done is done.

Take care,
Anne

She ate! WOOHOO!!

The snake finally ate, which is a big relief. She hadn’t eaten since the first week in September, and the breeder just told us that we could try for another week before he’d have to take her back and try to force feed her (which can be harmful to the snake). In the last two weeks I’ve committed atrocities against frozen pinkie mice in an attempt to get her to eat that will make me feel unclean for years to come. It was all for the greater good though, the means achieved the ends, and that’s all that matters, right? Right?!? Please tell me that having to wash mouse guts out of my jeans was just a small price to pay!

Anyway, now she just needs to digest for a couple of days without regurgitating her dinner (which is just a polite way of saying I hope she don’t puke), and then we’re home free.

So I can name her now… No, she still doesn’t have a name. I was going to name her right away, but when she stubbornly refused to eat I decided to wait. Naming a pet makes them an official family member. You can’t give something a name and then return them, it’s just not done. With the fear of losing her, I didn’t want to get any more attached than I had to.

Do you think I’m cynical? I’m not; I have the softest heart when it comes to animals. Remember, I cried for two days when the first snake ran away. When you’re that emotional you have to put up defenses when the situation warrants or your heart gets torn up on a regular basis. It’s not fun to be depressed over a baby snake, people think you’re crazy, and secretly you agree with them.

What was I talking about? Oh, snake names…

So CJ likes Lilith, Alexi suggested Persephone (Is that how it’s spelled? I can’t name a snake a name I can’t spell), I like Kepi which is an ancient Egyptian name meaning tempest. Someone suggested Carmine, which is under consideration, and Autumn got thrown out (Sorry Patti but Jenna’s godmother’s name is Autumn and I don’t think she’d appreciate her namesake), and there are some others that are being bandied about. It will take awhile; this family can never reach a decision quickly or quietly.


So anyway, now that I’ve filled you in on the snake news, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t posted to my blog in a week. Because I’m BUSY! What, don’t you have a life of your own? Sorry, I’m just kidding (I’m just flattering myself in believing that anyone’s noticed).

I have been working a lot though, I have an art gallery deadline coming up pretty quickly, I’m still working on materials for the dentists, a scheduled workshop is right around the corner, I’m way behind with ASB maintenance, and next week Tiana goes to Shriner’s hospital for her first visit, so I’m mentally preparing myself for that.

For those of you who don’t know about Tiana, I’ll share her story soon. She’s actually one of the reasons I decided to start a blog, because I want to be able to chronicle the walk she has ahead of her. So I’ll probably write her story after we get back from Shriner’s, and I promise I’ll start from the beginning.

Other than that, not a lot has been going on that is in any way interesting or entertaining. If something does happen though, you’ll be the first to know.

Have a good night!

Gourmet Rodents…

When we first got the snake, our breeder gave us a supply of frozen pinkie mice to feed her. Well, we went through them a little quicker than anticipated with setting traps for the snake who’s currently at large, and then with trying to get the other snake to eat. So John had to run to the pet store and get some frozen pinkies the other night.

Purchasing frozen mice is a first for our family, didn’t even know they were available until I got a snake. I didn’t know how they would be packaged, if they would be in a freezer where you could just grab them, or if employee assistance would be required in obtaining them.

So I sent John to the store with instructions to “Just ask someone who works there” and this is what he brought home:





5 individually packaged “Gourmet Rodents.”

My knee jerk reaction was to say “Hunny, you didn’t have to spend the extra money to get gourmet food, she’s a snake and doesn’t even chew. How refined can her palate be?” But I suppressed the impulse.

Gourmet Rodents… Perhaps I’m missing something, and people are dining in fancy French restaurants eating frog’s legs, snails and pinkie mice. It seems to be an oxymoron though, along the lines of “Military Intelligence,” and “Jumbo Shrimp.”
Ok now, apart from the fact that it’s rather amusing, I think it’s a little scary that manufactures of pet products feel the need to brand their items to appeal to the pet owners. They put food coloring in cat and dog foods, not so that the cat or dog will think it’s more appetizing, they can’t see in color, but so the human on the other end of the leash will think it looks good. I had a cat once that was allergic to the red dye added to most cat foods, he would yak any food products that contained it immediately after eating. Do you know how difficult (and expensive) it was to find food without this non-essential ingredient?

So, let me clue you in here Mr. or Ms. Pet food maker (like any one who could make a difference is reading this); no matter what you call it, a dead, frozen hairless mouse in not going to be appealing to me in any way, shape, or form! My snake needs it to live; I’m going to buy it no matter how it’s packaged or what it’s named.
What I find even scarier however, is the little note on the back of the package of Gourmet Rodents:

Need I say more?

Ok, off my soapbox!
Have a great day!

Just a day in the life...

I have some pictures to share… These are the pictures that I’ll use on the scrapbook page I talked about the other day.

Corydon W. S.



Corydon J. M.
With a 1937 Supercharged Convertible Cord

I don’t have too many pictures of Cord (the elder); this is one my mom gave me after CJ was born. Yes, there’s someone else in the picture with him. That’s Irene, his wife, and I’ll talk about her some other time I’m sure.


So, on to more mundane things…
I tried feeding the snake again last night, after two days of leaving her in solitude, but she’s still not going for it. I almost had her at one point, but she was distracted by something and shied away. I’ll leave her alone for a couple more days now and then try again.

I don’t know what I have planned for today. I should clean the house, but what fun is that. Perhaps some stamping instead. I need to make projects for a workshop next month. The last couple of workshops I’ve had, I waited until the last minute to put the projects together, and that’s a bad habit to get into. So I should really make an effort to get my act together. I want to make some Halloween things using the October Stamp of the Month, which is too cute for words, but I’m not quite sure what to do yet. Maybe some treat bags or something. I’ll have to look around and see if there’s anything fun I can case.

I did make a card yesterday. I was trying to come up with a card for a swap I’m in. I think the card turned out pretty good, but it has paper pieced letters in it, and the thought of cutting out 100 letters for a swap made me want to go play in traffic, so I’ll have to come up with something else. I’m just not good at making quick and easy cards, which means I’m also not good at big swaps. That’s why I usually only do 5 for 5 swaps.

Do you love those letters? I just got that set thanks to a fellow Angel, and I’m totally in love! I’d marry it and have its lowercase babies if I hadn’t already found the perfect man.

I’ve noticed that there are two kinds of sets I buy… There are the sets that I see and I like the design so I get them, but then once they get here I’m not quite sure what to do with them. I cut them out and look at them for awhile, and then I put them away and forget I have them. Sometimes they make it back out onto my desk and get used, but I’ll admit to having plenty of sets that have never seen an ink pad.

Then there are the sets that leap right off the page, grab me, and shake me. As soon as I see that black and white line drawing, pictures of completed projects start parading through my head. The Alpha Grunge set is one of those. This set is perfect for so many things… Scrapbook titles, monogram cards, it’s a great set for paper piecing, or just doodling on the insides of the letters.

Ok, I need to go get something done. John’s on the road today, so we can’t IM each other. That means I need to take a computer free day and catch up on the rest of my life.

Have a good one!

Just one of those mornings...

I woke up this morning to John's sonorous voice hollering "Oh sh**!" I opened my eyes to see the clock and find that we should have left the house fifteen minutes earlier…

Don’t you just love it when your morning starts out like that?

All in all, it could have been worse. We were only about 20 minutes late and still early enough that we had some time to relax before we had to start playing. It all went well, my voice didn’t get as torn up as I thought it would, and people seemed to appreciate the noise we were making. I was a little worried about what we were going to do with the girls while we were playing, but they ended up earning their keep by helping pass out water bottles to the participants.

We also got a really nice sign that says “ABS Blues Band” out of the deal. I’m sure I’ll find a good use for it.

Ok, so… It’s time for a snakey-poo update.

No, she still doesn’t have a name. I have a couple of ideas, but I want to run them by the two oldest kids to get their thoughts first. They come back home tomorrow, so maybe she’ll have a name by tomorrow night. Notice I say maybe… I have no faith in our ability to agree on anything. I attempted to feed her last night, but she refused it. I’m thinking (hoping) that she’s still stressed out from the move. We’re leaving her alone for awhile, and then we’ll try again. If some solitude doesn’t do the trick, I’ll have to give the breeder a call and see what he recommends. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that though, he’s going to think I’m an idiot pretty soon if I keep having all of these problems. I’m not, I swear I’m not! I’ve raised four kids and haven’t had a single one escape their cage.*

*Disclaimer - I’m just kidding, no need to call DCFS.

I didn’t get any stamping done yesterday like I’d planned. I did get to go to the JoAnn Superstore though. I’m much better at accumulating papercrafting supplies than I am at using them anyway. I got a new Sizzix die. *Yay* I bought the slide mount die I’ve been wanting for awhile. I think it will be cool to cut them from chipboard and alter them. I also ordered the Ransom Doodle Bar set from the Sizzix web page last week (at 70% off on clearance *WooHoo*). They’re coming out with some really cute new dies now, and I, of course, want them all!

I also found the cutest Frankenstein dollar stamp there. I didn’t know JoAnn’s had dollar stamps, but I don’t get to the superstore that often. When I went to make some Halloween projects a couple of weeks ago, I found that I was seriously lacking in Halloween stamps, so now I’m doing my best to fill that hole. I’ve since gotten 3 Halloween sets from The Angel Company, along with a bunch of dollar stamps from Michael’s and now JoAnn’s.

*One of my projects made without a Halloween stamp.
It uses the Creepy Crawlies set from TAC.

I should be good for awhile now… Maybe… Though there is another TAC set that I’ve had my eye on…

John’s outside patching the front walk. We have to fill the big hole before it freezes or they won’t deliver our mail anymore (we nothing, make that He). I don’t hear him swearing yet, so it must be going ok, though he has had to make at least one trip to the hardware store for extra cement, and I see another in his future.

I should go take a picture before he gets mad so I can scrapbook the event.
Have a great day!
Anne

Better Photo

Better Photo

I had Ms. Snake out last night, so I finally got a photo of her entire body.

She's still pretty small, but she's only a month old.

This evening she gets to have her first meal here, and then we have to leave her alone for a few days while she digests. I expect her first feeding will go well; she seems to be settling in to her new environment, so hopefully she won't have any problems.

I submitted the photo of her poking her head out of the bedding to Stock Exchange, but it was rejected due to the subject being too small in the picture. I could crop it down which would probably make it more acceptable as stock art, but then the photo loses the depth of field and I think it compromises the composition. I'm not too terribly upset about the rejection; I think it's a good photo, just not what they look for in their stock art. Or maybe I'm just getting used to rejection.

I have a couple that I'm going to submit after some editing. I'm going to crop out the background entirely so that the subject becomes a photo object (just an item with a white background). Those might fly a little better, but we'll wait and see.

We had band practice today...

We're playing tomorrow at the Breast Cancer Walk and Run in Milwaukee. The only problem is we learned last week that we wouldn't have access to any electricity for the show. We debated renting a generator, but the expense was just too high for a gig we're volunteering for, so we decided to put together an acoustic show instead.

We ran the material today, and it sounds pretty good. My voice is going to be torn up by the end of the set though. I wish I could at least have a mike, but it's not going to happen. I'm just going to have to rely on my old opera training and project over the band. I've been using a mike for too long, and I'm not used to working that hard when I sing anymore.

I'm sure it will all be fine, and it's not like people are going to be hanging around to listen to us, they'll just be walking by and will only hear us for a few minutes.

Next week we'll start getting ready for the showcase gig in October. One set of our best material; those are the shows I like!

I think I'm going to do a spot of stamping today. I just got my new Halloween sets so I want to play. John's not feeling so hot, and Jenna woke him up early this morning, so he's taking a little nap. When he gets up we're going to run to the Guitar Center to get him some new strings for his acoustic. Until then, I have about 2 hours to play with my new sets. So I'm off! If I make anything good, I'll be sure to let you know!

Have a good one

Giving this a try...

Giving this a try...

We've talked about adding blogs to A Shade of Blue, so I thought maybe I should give one a try so that I know what we're getting into. I'm not much of a journaler or diary writer though, so I don't know how well this will fly.

I won't go into a long drawn out introduction... If you're here, you already know me. It's not like anyone out there who doesn't know me will care what I have to say... Heck, most of the people who do know me probably don't care either.

So we got a new snake (that's her in the picture up there). This is my second snake in two weeks now. I lost the first one; she got out of her cage while we were all peacefully sleeping right after we brought her home, and we haven't seen her since. I'm sure she's living in the vents of our house now, happily munching on spiders and centipedes. They keep telling me that she might show up someday, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. Let's face it, if you had the choice between living in a ten gallon fish tank or making a break for the vast subterranean ventilation system, which would you choose?

So John brought me a home a new reptile friend, and I promptly went out and got a tank with a locking lid (I might be a fool but I'm no idiot). She's very pretty, but we haven't seen a whole lot of her yet. She's been hiding in the bedding since she got here.

She needs a name... I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that's why the last snake ran away. We'd had her for three days and hadn't named her yet. I'd be mad too... Alexi keeps suggesting these weird mythological names, Tiana is demanding we call her Fluffy, and Jenna tells us that no matter what we name the snake, she is going to call her Puppy. Is it just me or is there something wrong with my kids? CJ is the only one supporting the nearly normal name of Lilith. I'll let you know when a final decision is reached.

So I guess that's it for now. John and I have a babysitter scheduled for tonight, which means I have to clean the house. Perhaps I'll come back later and procrastinate a little longer. They say that writing is therapeutic, and this hasn't been too terrible. We'll just wait and see if I can keep up with it.

Happy Friday!