First, let’s just get this out of the way. This post was going to include pictures but some dumb ass *looks guilty* left the camera on so the battery wore down to dead. This was, of course, discovered when I grabbed the camera to get the pictures. So no pictures.

I don’t know if I mentioned a few months back that was lost skittles. All the rats were sick for a short time but Skittles never got better. He wheezed for a couple of weeks when he finally passed. So we are left with three. We have our originally rat, Imp, and the twins, Harry and Larry.

Anyway there are two main points to the post and they are as follows:

Rats love oatmeal. My cousin David has correctly named it rat crack. I made them two packets of cinnamon roll flavored instant oatmeal and I had all three of them digging in. It makes for a good healthy treat every now and then. I haven’t gotten figured out what their main food will be. Even though we’ve had them for almost a year. We’ve switched between bird food (with seeds and corn ) to hamster food and back. They seem to like the hamster food the best but it comes in such little bags and the 3 of them go through it so fast. The bird food (I don’t think it’s technically meant for birds but I don’t know what to call it and it’s found with the bird seed) comes in a huge bag and is less expensive but it isn’t their favorite. No matter what we give them we do supplement it with table scraps. I wouldn’t say they get table scraps daily, but at least a couple times a week. They love when my dad makes mashed potatoes because they get the peel. However, he hasn’t really cooked anything in quite a long time now. But that’s a whole other post not for tonight.

The other point to this post was my creative ingenuity. For awhile now I’ve wanted to give the rats a hammock but I knew if I bought one they’d just tear it to shreds. My cousin David, or maybe it was his wife Kim, suggested I grab an old sweatshirt or some scrap fleece from a craft store and make my own. Well I don’t have any old sweatshirts to cut up and I never seem to have the cash to get to a fabric store to buy fleece. So last night I got to thinking about what I could use. It’s only taken me a year but I found something. We have an old towel (well actually it’s a bath mat) that already has holes in it. Nothing major that I have to worry about rats falling through, but it isn’t in any condition to be used for it’s proper use. Especially since we have a really nice bath mat. So last night I cut holes in each corner and used zip ties to attach it to the cage, and my fur babies now have a nice, homemade, hammock. It’s huge. Seriously it takes up about half the cage in length and hangs down quite a bit. But that just means it can be climbed on and the bottom is big enough for a cuddle puddle. All three rats can use it at the same time with easy. The bad news is they still prefer their corner, it seems. I’m hoping they just have to get use to it.

Anyway there is your not so regular update on the rats. They are all happy and healthy and properly spoiled.

Went to the gym last night with mom. I had a lot of pent up energy come out as aggression so I called mom and asked her to take me to the gym with her. This is by no means a regular thing. I save this request for when I really need it because she has only so many guest visits allowed total. I don’t want to use them all up. Lasts night’s session was good to me. I was able to work out whatever was going on in my head and take it out on something that could handle it. I started on the bike, moved to weight lifting until my body felt like jelly, and then finished back on the bike.

After the gym we went back to her house to just kinda hang out. I didn’t really feel like going home and she welcomed the company. We didn’t do anything amazingly special. Just talked while she sorted through papers and tried on clothes. She’s lost a bunch of weight and is bit by bit starting to fit into her skinny clothes. I’m kinda jealous only I don’t have skinny clothes to fit into. Nor can I afford to buy any. So I guess I’m better off at my current weight. Which is good since my meds make it impossible for me to lose.

On a happier note mom is planning to buy me a bathing suit so i can take the kids swimming this summer. The only suit I have is from when I was pregnant with Luke and it’s not at all flattering to my figure. Not to mention my chest is too big for it. I found a really cute suit through land’s end and it comes in plus sizes. I just have to make up my mind between black, teal and purple. Though I’m pretty sure I’m going with the purple. Maybe teal but probably purple.

I’m really tired today. Mom had me out til just after midnight and Luke had me awake at 8:30. I was really tired yesterday too. I’m not sure why though. I’m still doing ok depression wise. I’ve been super cranky the past 2 days but not depressed.

I’m starting to look into lenses I want for my camera. I think I might get 1 or 2 with my next tax return. Actually the one I’ve decided on for sure is a 50mm f/1.8 for portraits. It runs about 150$. I’m sure I get it for less than that with my employee discount. I think I’m going to ask mom to buy me it for my birthday. Which is still months away but I guess I’m not in a huge hurry. Either way I need something that will focus faster than what I’m currently using so I can get better portraits of the kids. Right now they move faster than my camera can focus. I can manual focus of course but that takes time too. I need something fast fast fast! I’m also looking for something to replace my 28-80mm f/3.8-5.6 lens. The focus feature on it is sometimes broken so it’s starting to really piss me off. It likes to get stuck so i have to fight to get it moving again. It can be fairly close to what I already have, though I do want some change so I feel like I’m getting an upgrade. The one I really want is an 18-200mm f/3.8-5.6 but it’s 850$ (not sure what it is with my discount) and I simply can’t afford that. Maybe with my tax return but probably not. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I might just have to continue with what I currently have. I guess technically since it’ll be used for still life and landscapes I will have more time to fight with the lens to get it to work properly. But I have a feeling one of these days I’m going to explode over it and no one wants that. Either way I’ll hang on to my current lens because it does have a macro feature on it that’s nice to have. It allows for real close-ups of things. Normally you have to have a separate lens for that. I guess I just need to take this 1 lens at a time and right now I’m going to focus on my 50mm. It will be my next big camera purchase.

Alright, stuff to do. Fishville fish to feed. Castleage monsters to battle. Later guys and gals!

So we were all sick last week into this week. Again. I know. Pat has come to the conclusion that we keep catching the same strand of ecoli. I dunno. He’s usually right,. It doesn’t really matter either way. All I know is that we were all pukein’ and poopin’ and my living room carpet will never be the same. Thanks Luke.

So how bad was it? Let’s just day we went through 12 rolls of toilet paper in 2 weeks. At the worst of it, I went through 2 rolls in one day. By myself. I pretty much lived in the bathroom that day. It was insane. But we’re better now.

And we’ve disinfected the whole house top to bottom. So hopefully we’ve killed the little bugger that keeps making us sick each month like clock work.

Oh, and I only missed one day of work and it was a 4 hour day on a 4 day week so it wasn’t a huge deal. Yay me. The plus side to never working is that if I’m sick, chances are I have the day off anyways.

There are signs I’m lifting out of my depression. I’m doing little things like folding laundry on the first try, putting laundry away, sorting away outgrown clothes, cleaning bathrooms, brushing my teeth, showering on days I don’t technically need one. You know, little things. And I’m looking forward to events that I know will take energy like school. Though I always look forward to school. I like learning as an adult.

Speaking of school I’m trying to figure out how many classes to sign up for this coming semester. Wait let’s back up a bit.

I put in a job application on Saturday. There is a plus sized women’s clothing store that is a 2 minute walk from where I work. A store that I think I’d actually enjoy working at. So I put in an application. While I’m not actively looking for a second job, I’m not ignoring opportunities either. The manager I spoke to seemed to like me and she said out loud she liked my application. The only problem is they have no idea if they are hiring at the moment. They just hired a few new girls and are still working out their schedule. If they are hiring it would only be for 10-15 hours a week. Since I’m only wanting 2 shifts a week, that would be about perfect. ideally between the two jobs I’d be at 5-6 days a week with maybe a couple of long days. I don’t mind long days as long as there is a change of scenery involved. No matter where I’m working I’ll always have Wednesdays off so that would be at least 1 day a week of rest. So it might be a bit crazy but we need the money. And that’s only if they actually hire me. Big maybe. No matter what she said she was hanging onto my app, but who knows when she’d need to put it to use. I also need to stress that the clothing store would be a second job not a replacement job.

So back on the school thing. If I’m working 2 jobs, 1 class. If I’m working 1 job with moderate hours, 2 classes. If I’m working 1 job with no hours, 3 classes. That’s what I’m thinking anyways. I sign up on the 26th. Unless by some miracle I get a job offer before that, I’m signing up for all three then I’ll drop what I need to drop when it comes time to pay for them in June. I’m really hoping I can take at least 2 classes. But we need the income more than I need my education. Mostly. So technically I should be hoping I can only take 1. Sort of.

Work itself is going ok. We are a bit busier than we have been. Not busy enough to get me in there more days, but busy enough to keep me sorta entertained on the days I am in there. So really, not very busy yet still busier than we were. Follow that? No? Read it again. Ok.

Now that I’m back to feeling better, instead of being weighed down by depression, I can honestly say I enjoy what I do. Sure, it gets a little monotonous (either I spelled that right on my first try or my spell checker hasn’t caught up with me yet… wow I spelled it right) at times but so does anything. I know I’m doing what I want to be doing. Is it what I want to be doing in 20 years? No, by then I hope to have my own studio. But in the meantime I’m in the right job at the right company. I just wish I had more hours and that things were a bit busier. We’re getting there I guess.

Thomas is good. He’s getting so big. He’s officially a reader now. He’s still in the early learning stages but he’s getting better and better. He reads everything in sight these days. On that note, I have an interesting (to me) story. He brought home a book on the underground railroad for school yesterday. He of course asked me to read it to him. Which I had no problems doing but I had to start it with a long discussion about slavery. He was a really good listener to it. I, in layman’s terms, explained that a long time ago white people were really bad to brown people (as he calls them, if he’s calling them anything other than people) and we made them work without paying them. I explained that the work was hard and the brown people were often beaten. They got very poor living conditions and very little food. They had no freedom. So a lot of them tried to run away, but if they were caught they could be killed. I did explain that there were nice white people that helped the brown people run away to freedom. Anyway, you got the idea. He seemed to understand. I guess they’ve touched on it in school. He didn’t seem to have any questions which kinda makes me wonder what he’s thinking. I hope I stressed enough that slavery was very very bad.

Luke is awesome. He’s talking more and more and we’re understanding him better and better. He has admirers near and far. I think it’s the red hair and chubby cheeks. One of his admirers (a friend of ours from WoW) is even sending Luke a teddy bear. I made the mistake of mentioning publicly that he needed one and next thing I know we had a volunteer. Anyway, I’ve seen the bear and it’s perfect. It should be arriving later this evening which is amazing since it was just mentioned, and ordered, yesterday. The good news is that now instead of saving my spending money for a teddy bear, I can save it for a booster seat for the kitchen table. He’s starting to resist the high chair. I can’t really blame him. He’s getting so big.

Wow I’ve rambled for quite I bit. I think it’s time I go ahead and post this. Later guys and gals!

• Get Pat’s and my laundry sorted and put away. (done)
• Find Pat’s DSoftheM boxers. (I swear they are gone forever)
• Get Luke’s outgrown clothes out of his dresser, sorted and put away into storage. (not sorted but out fo the dresser anyways…. I need more bins)
• Get Luke’s summer clothes put into his dresser. (done)
• Get TK’s basket of clothes up so TK can do the same with his clothes. (I’ll get this post nap. Tk isn’t even home yet.)
• Clean out under all 3 sinks. (done)
• Organize the cleaning supplies so they are all together under the upstairs bathroom sink. (Stupid, not doing this. What was I thinking at 1:30AM?)
• Try hard not to crash due to lack of sleep. (done)

I just spend the first half to three fourths of Luke’s nap sorting out the boys’ closet. I had to sort out all the clothes into bins according to size; a project I usually take on twice a year but six months ago I was too far gone into my lack of motivation to be able to accomplish it. So it made for extra work today. Anyway, I’ve run out of extra bins, and one bin, annoyingly enough, doesn’t have a lid, but everything has a home.

There was also tons of crap on the bottom of the closet and I got all that cleaned out. Then I shut the doors and threatened Thomas with death, should he ever open them again. The doors on one side are falling off their track, if not completely off, and I keep fixing them just to have Thomas knock them off track again. Little man is starting to piss me off. I wish I could like remove his closet and put it down in the basement with me. He doesn’t use it for clothes, it’s just storage.

Pat is discouraging me from selling the clothes. I think we are both really focused on the fact that we want a third kid, so why sell what you’re just going to have to turn around and replace? He’s also convinced me I won’t get enough to cover a new tire so that isn’t a good enough of a reason to sell them. I think he’s right. Anyway after I have our 3rd kid I’ll sell the clothes as he outgrows them. And I’ll just take them to once upon a child and be less worried about how much I make and more worried about convenience of the sale. Or maybe I will craig’s list them. Who knows, I have time to make up my mind.

As for the two stores I was going to job hunt at, Pat doesn’t want me working in this neighborhood. In the light of day I can kinda see his point. We are kinda in the ghetto and safety is a concern. It is also kinda unsettling that one of the managers in one of the stores smokes pot out behind work. Not that I’m against the use of pot. I think it should be legal and when it is I’ll probably be prescribed it for it’s medicinal purposes, or at lest the pill form. So I’m not against working for someone who smokes it. But smoking it at work while it’s still illegal? Yeah, that’s kinda dumb. And I don’t like working for dumb people. Been there, done that, never again.

Anyway, I figure if Pat wants me to find a second or new job he’ll tell me to. Until then I’m done worrying about it. I’ve already checked into the 3 stores I was wanting to work at, and neither of them worked out. So that is that.

Pat is puky sick now. Thomas has had it off and on all week while the rest of us have been fine, but Pat is not so fine now. Luke and I remain symptom free so hopefully we’ll stay that way. I have to work the next three days so I can’t afford to get sick.

Both boys are set on clothes for the summer, and they both have shoes that are in good shape. I was even able to find a pair of Thomas’ old sandals that will fit Luke so I’m excited there. Now I just need a pair of flip flops for Thomas and we’ll be golden. That should only cost 5-10$ and mom usually buys them before I get a chance so I’m not too worried. Actually his flip flops from last year might still fit him, I’ll have to check. Thomas is digging them out now and trying them on. They just barely fit. He’ll need a new pair soon but these will hold him over in the meantime.

Alright, Luke is calling up to me so I need to go rescue him.

Laters!