Rats and Babies

I bought a new fleece cube and bunker hammock for the big cage since they tore up their last one. Here's Bandit getting comfy in the cube.

Patches eating a yogi. 

Marbles giving me the stink eye and bandit in the back with him. 

Marbles coming to let me know if I'm gonna take pictures I better bring treats too. 

Bandit checking out the bunker hammock. I think he approves.

This is Patches with the old Bunker hammock in the background. As you can see they needed a new one because they tore that one all to heck.

My grandson, Logan. He's 3 months old now and about 15lbs. He is always wanting to stand or try to stand up. He's such a cutie.

Lucky and the Lava Ledge

Lucky is my hyper, three legged rat. I take him out of his cage a minimum of three times a day and let him run around on the couch with us. 

He's always played, running from us and running back and wrestling with our hands. He's so funny. But he has really long, sharp nail on his back paws, so I thought if I put a Lava Ledge in his cage he would do what the other rats do in the other cage...hop on it and sit. When they move around on it, it works like a natural nail file and files down their nails. 

But no, he wants to destroy it!

Eat it!

Anything but sit on it. Well I guess he'll use it for a teeth file instead..lol 

Freebie Friday!

Welcome to another edition of Freebie Friday, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too.

While the A to Z Blogging Challenge was going on, I won a book from Kim at Sos Aloha and she let me pick 10 books from her convention stash because she is moving and didn't want to have to haul all the books with her during the move. She threw in a couple extra so I ended up getting 14 free books from her. How cool is that? I am a very happy girl.

This week I'm starting back up with my weekly posts on what freebies I've received. This haul is actually from 2 weeks ago but I took a picture of the weeks freebies to share with you. That week I got..

A full size Gillette Fusion Proglide Razor.

a 24ct. bottle of Excedrin. 

A Sample of Fekkai shampoo. 

The Tuscan Tycoon's Pregnant Housekeeper by Christina Hollis. I won this book from Christina Hollis when she visited Tote Bags and Blogs.

I found the links to the other freebies on Freebie Shark.

So did you receive anything for free this week?

Dogs Dying After Eating Medical Marijuana

The next time someone tells you that medical marijuana has never killed anyone...you can tell them that's BS.

I saw on the news not too long ago that at least two dogs have died from ingesting edibles like baked goods and butter made with marijuana, because their human owners were too stoned or stupid to put the drugs up and out of the way.

After hearing about this and reading from veterinarians that the cases of marijuana poisoning has more than tripled each week in vet offices all over the US where medical marijuana is now legal, I knew I had another article to write.

And you can find it here.

The fact is, if you are going to have marijuana in your home and are not wise enough to keep it up out of the reach of your pets...then you shouldn't have pets.

And here is a few news stories for those out there that continue to say that marijuana has never killed anyone. That my friend, is a lie. Don't get caught up in the hype that just because marijuana is a plant and is all natural that it can't hurt you. Oleander is all natural and a plant and people use it to commit suicide all the time. So just because something is all natural and a plant does NOT mean it's good for you.

Police: Driver high on marijuana hits, kills pedestrian in Vancouver

Killed by cannabis: Boy, 17, dies falling down stairs while high on skunk ... and proves Sir Richard Branson is wrong about drugs

Man Convicted Of Causing Deadly Accident By Driving While Stoned

Driver In Crash That Killed Skokie Boy Allegedly High On Pot

Pot-smoking dad guns down college students as 7-year-old daughter hides under table: cops

Stoned Driving Nearly Doubles the Risk of a Fatal Crash

I just want to state that I am not against the use of Medical Marijuana for patients who are going through cancer treatment, are terminally ill, or going through other medical treatments that are causing them pain. I really feel for those people. What I am against are all these people who can now get their 'medical cannabis' card for ailments such as headaches, stress, back pain, anxiety, depression, the shakes, ect...There are medicines out there with little to no side effects that are better equipped in treating these types of ailments. Medical Marijuana should not be allowed to be used to these things. First it's a cop out and second, most people who get them for these ailments are faking the ailments in order to smoke week legally.

Anyone can go to their doctor and say they have back pain, headaches, stress or anxiety and there's really no way to the doctor to prove that you don't have these things.

But the next time that some idiot tries telling you that medical marijuana has never killed anyone...you'll be able to tell them differently.

Facebook Etiquette

I've been on facebook now for a few years and there are always a few people who do things that really annoy me and other people. I see it happening all the time. So here are a few things you should NOT do on Facebook. 

1. Do not tag others in your family pictures if they aren't family.- I had a few friends that had babies and they wanted everyone to see their new babies. So what did they do? They tagged dozens of their friends in the baby pictures which meant the pictures ended up on my wall with my name on them. So them my family and other friends would ask if that was me, or my kid, or a relative and I would have to say no just a friends kid. I'll see your pictures by you just adding them on your page, you don't need to tag me in them. 

2. Don't add other people to groups.- Omg I hate this. I've been added to several different groups and for the most part I just delete myself from the group but some times people don't know how to delete themselves from a group and get mad. 

3. Do Not send game requests.- I can't tell you how many times I get game requests and I see how much it really bothers others on fb. People will even delete you as a friend for doing this too much. 

4. Do Not add pictures of abused and hurt animals to your page. Even if you are trying to get the animal help or want to see the people responsible for the abuse put away.- There is never any reason for sharing a picture of a bloody abused animal on Facebook. People open up their fb pages and look at their newsfeeds in their living rooms, kitchen tables and around their small children and kids see this stuff. It's bad enough if a kid see's it but I don't want to see it either. I have deleted several friends for doing just this thing even after I warned them I would delete them if they did it again. I won't tolerate it and I will report the picture. 

5. Don't share other people's family photos without permission.- I had a friend share a photo of her grandson on her page mostly for her other relatives to see it and I clicked "like" on it. One of my friends saw the picture I clicked "like" on and decided to share said picture on her wall and then posted a comment asking who the hell this baby belonged too. I had to tell her it was a friends and to take it down she shouldn't have shared it. 

6. If you don't understand the 'Share" button, don't use it.- I had a friends post a picture of a half naked man on the cover of a romance book and I made a comment on it and a friend of mine saw the picture because of the comment I made, it came up in her newsfeed. So she 'shared' the picture on her page and then when she saw it on her page she got mad and cussed the person out who originally posted the picture for addding filth to her wall. I had to explain to her what the "share" button did. Don't share things unless you want them to be posted on your wall. 

7. Don't comment on every post and picture.- If I post 75 pictures you don't have to 'like' and comment each and every one. You can let me know you like certain ones by leaving a comment or 'like' and I'll know you've seen the whole folder. But getting 75 notifications that 75 pictures have been liked by the same person is crazy. 

8. Don't be a friend hoarder. - Don't send out friend requests to hundreds of people just so you have hundreds of friends you never talk to. I'm not putting a link to my fb page here because if I want to be your friend, I'll send you a friend request. If I don't know you, I most likely won't accept your friend request. If we don't have at least one friend in common..why are you trying to friend me in the first place if you don't know me? People who have 1200 friends and aren't a celebrity..are most likely friend hoarders. if you don't talk to me at least once a month, make a comment on fb on at least one post a month and we are friends..I will delete you. I see no reason to stay friends if you aren't going to talk to me.

9. Don't Overshare.- Don't tell me how much you vomited, don't take pictures of the biggest turd you've ever shat and then post it on fb, don't pick a big green booger after having a sinus infection and post pictures, don't show pictures of the toe surgery you just had while it's still oozing puss, and for the love of a cheeseburger don't tell us how much poo the baby's diaper had in it today. 

10. Don't Share My Status Posts on Your Wall As Your Own- If I write a status like "today I went out and had a burger, some fries and then we went to the park to feed the ducks." Why would you then share that status using the share button so it posts on your page? Why would a person do that unless they just don't have a full understanding of facebook etiquette. In a case like this, that is my status..do not share it. There's no reason to share it. if you want to comment on it, by all means do so. 

So there you have it. A few facebook Etiquette rules.

My Rat Ate My Homework!

This is Lucky. He looks like he doesn't have a care in the world right now, doesn't he? That's because when I took this picture he'd had a long night of shredding paper! My rat ate hubby's homework Dr. Referrals!

There's a little shelf that sits right next to Lucky's cage, you can see here how close the cage is to the papers. So that night after we went to bed, Lucky decided he wanted to have some fun and shred the paperwork. It must have been just close enough to where he could pull them in. As you can see...he did a good job tearing these up. I pulled all of these out of his cage.

These were the little pieces scattered around his cage.

There are holes in some, almost nothing left of others and just little bites taken out of one or two. 

I don't know how he got holes in the middle of this paper, but he did. So poor Ken had to call his Doctor and explain to the secretary that his rat ate his Dr. Referral and he needed another one. 

She doubted him until he said he would bring pictures of the rats ..then she just laughed. When he arrived down at the doctors office the next day one of the other ladies behind the desk looked at him and said, "Rats? Really?" He laughed and explained that we had rats and one of them got a hold of the referrals and tore them up. 

I thought it was kinda funny. 

Ken, not so much. 

LOL

"I had fun mommy. Can I have some more paper?" 

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Z is For Zeal

I have a zeal for many things like animals, books, music and but I also have a real zeal for cooking and trying new things. My motto is, I'll try anything once...twice if it's kinky. ;)

So when I was given a coupon for a free box of this new Fleischman's Simply Homemade Bread mix, I was pretty excited because all you do is mix and sugar and yeast that comes in the box with a cup of warm water, wait for it to activate (about 3 minutes). Then mix in the pouch of powdered mix, let rise and bake. I mean, how easy is that?

After mixing it all together, I put it in a pan to raise. (Yes, this pan has seen better days and as you can see has been used many, many times over the past 20 years. But it's my favorite pan because it works so well. 

After it is baked for 20 minutes I cut into it and this is what it looked like. It was so good too. 

Do you have a zeal for something?

Have you tried this bread mix?

I really had a lot of fun participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge and met some great people. I hope you'll continue to come back and visit. 

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Y is For Yogies

If you have a pet rat or even if you don't this will make you laugh. This rat got a hold of a canister of Yogies, which are yogurt treats for rats and other small animals. Rats love these things.

Not only do rats like Yogies, but they love yogurt. Here I am sharing my yogurt with my boys. 

Brodie loved yogurt. Yes, before you ask..I do share my food with my rats and no I've never gotten sick from it. lol But you should have seen the look on my mom's face one year when she came over for Christmas and my first rat, Romi came running across the back of the couch, jumped down next to my plate of Christmas dinner, snatched a piece of food and sat there and ate it. 

My Bookmark Obsession and A Giveaway!

I have an obsession with book swag.

I have so much, it won't fit into one picture. lol 

I started collecting bookmarks about 10 years ago and then a few years ago all the authors started sending out bookmarks and postcards with whatever book I won and I accumulated many, many more than I ever thought I would.

My husband doesn't get why I keep all of these but I love bookmarks.

I have piles upon piles of them. I keep them stored in freezer storage bags so they don't get dusty, dirty or folded. 

I do keep out a few to actually use as bookmarks in my books though.

My favorites are my signed bookmarks, bookplates and post cards though. 

I have many, many signed bookmarks, post cards ect and love getting them.

I'm not sure that authors know how much it means to us readers that they take the time to send along a note or a signed bookmark when we win a book from them. I also have many signed books that I really love. 

Some of the signed bookmarks, postcards and notes I have are from Kate Douglas, Tempest Knight, Deanna Jewel, Cora Zane, Cassandra Curtis, Lori Foster, Ashlyn Chase, Sam Cheever, Heidi Betts, Alison Paige, Kate Walker, Cheryl Dragon, Joey W. Hill, Tilly Greene, Lorelei James, Debbie MaComber, Tawny Webber, Stella Cameron, Susanna Car, Jenna Petersen and many more. 

I lost count after 1000 so I know I have more than that now.

Now for the Giveaway!

Would you like to win a signed bookmark or postcard, plus all the swag you see here from my personal stash?

What I have for you is 3 signed pieces of swag...from Cheryl Dragon, Angie Fox, and C.J. Ellisson. Also there will be a refrigerator magnet from Erin McCartney, a door hanger from Heidi Betts, and bookmarks from Tory Richards and Lizzie T. Leaf.  The Lizzie T. Leaf bookmark has the cutest little doggie charm on it. 

If you'd like to win this swag pack, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post with your email address so I can get in touch with you if you win. Giveaway ends on May 8th.

Sorry, US only. 

Update: Contest is now closed.

A To Z Blogging Challenge: X is For X Factor

I watched this show, the X factor the first season and even the second season but I won't watch it again and this video from the show pretty much shows why.

The judges on the show are not there to help the contestants, they were there to bicker at one another, poke fun at each other, try and one up the other judges. Instead of being a judge and doing the job she was being paid to do and tell one of these contestants which one she thought should go home...Nicole left it up to America's vote- knowing full well that shows like this and American Idol are nothing but popularity contests and the person who has the most friends and most people calling in for them is going to get the votes, not necessarily the person with the most talent.

Nicole Scherzinger didn't do her job and left the vote to America who decided that the guy was the one who was going to stay, Marcus Canty stayed and Rachel Crow was voted off even though she was 1000 times better than he was.

I don't watch this show anymore.

A To Z Blogging Challenge: W is For Welding

When my younger brother and I were kids our grandfather had a welding shop. He made all kinds of things including decorative fences, window coverings and golf clubs. Papaw as we called our grandpa, taught my brother how to weld when he was younger and he never forgot. So a couple of years ago my brother started making these Horse Shoe Tables by welding the Hose Shoes together. 

Billy makes them and sells them now. I think they came out pretty good. 

They are the perfect size for small planters and knick knacks. 

I remember watching the guys in papaws welding shop wearing those big bulky masks that the only thing you can see is the light coming off the welds you are making. His shop always smelled of burning metal and I liked it. 

If you would like to buy one of these Horse Shoe tables you can contact Billy at medmanbill@yahoo.com for pricing.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: V is For Verification

Word verification to be precise. 

I despise word verification....turn it off. 

When I first started this blog I had no idea what I was doing..I had word verification turned on and had the settings so that anonymous people could make comments. Thankfully a friend of mine emailed me and told me that the word verification was going to make me lose visitors and subscribers because a lot of times you can't make out what the words are and have to enter it several times. Well people are going to get fed up and just not comment on blogs with word verification. 

I said I had it on because of the spam comments I was getting. He told me to turn off the setting that let anonymous people make comments. So I did and for quite a while I had no problems. Then for a while I started getting spam comments from people who had blogger profiles and turned word verification back on...big mistake. I actually had 2 people unsubscribe because I had word verification turned back on. 

But as you can see from my picture above, it really can be hard to tell what the words are and people who visit your blog are usually visiting several other blogs and don't want to have to take an extra minute just to but in a capcha or word verification. 

I stopped commenting on some blogs that still have word verification, it's just a real pain. 

My advice..turn the settings off so that anonymous people can't make comments, turn moderation comments on if you have to so you have to approve each comment before it's posted ....but for the love of a ham sandwich, turn word verification off!

A to Z Blogging Challenge: U is For Unicorns

Here is a couple of Unicorns from my collection. The little dragon hatching from the egg is what my husband bought for me when I was pregnant with my daughter 21 years ago. I bought those two Unicorns about a month later.

I used to have a huge collection of Unicorns but when moved 6 times in 10 years because of hubby's work and a lot of them broke or got lost but these two always found their way with me. 

These two are my favorite from this collection. I've started other collections but they always seem to fizzle out. 

Things like:

Stamps- I started and after a while got bored with it. 

Dragons- bought two and it got expensive so is two statues considered a collection?

Bookmarks- Yeah that's more of an obsession at this point. I have about 1000 of them now. 

Pens- Yeah there's another obsession (maybe I need to see Dr. Phil) I have about 100 Author swag pens.

Unicorns- I still have 10 Unicorns and I do consider that a collection. 

Books- I have about 2000 books on my shelves at the moment. Hubby thinks I'm a few books away from being on an episode of Hoarders. 

Added: Here's a blog post I made with pictures of some of the books in my collection. Book Collection. 

Do you collect anything?

A To Z Blogging Challenge: T is For Twitter

To my fellow A to Z'ers. I may be a little tardy in replying to comments because my younger brother is coming in today from out of town to spend a couple of days with us. But I will be back replying and visiting very soon. :)

A friend, (CaroleDee) once told me I should write a Twitter Tutorial, for all of you out there that don't understand the basics of Twitter. So I thought I would just give you all some of the basics. 

Here's a screen shot of my Twitter Home page. Up in the left hand corner under my name is where you would compose your message (Tweet) and send it. 

On the right hand side under where it says tweets, is where you can see all the tweets the people you follow have made. 

I'm @scarymary66 on there if you want to add me.

Twitter is essentially just like fb...it has a Twitter feed where you can see what the people you are following are tweeting about and on your page you can send out tweets about anything you want, or you can add a hashtag like #rats and the Tweet will go to a page where everyone else has made tweets with the same Hashtag.

Home= your page and Twitter feed page.

Notifications= Where you can see who has added you to a tweet or mentioned you and this is where you can reply back.

Now if you hover your curser over one of the Tweets you will see other things pop up at the bottom of the tweet.. You will see the words...   Reply  Retweet   Favorite  More...

Clicking on Reply lets you reply to the person who sent the tweet.

Clicking on Retweet lets you tweet that same message to your followers.

And if you click on favorite, that means you like that post. 

Clicking on More... you can embed, mute, block or report or send the Tweet via email. 

If you click in the Expand, the details of the tweet will appear and this is where you would click on 'details' in order to find the url of the tweet that you can then copy and paste for things like rafflecopter contests that ask for the url of the tweet you posted. 

                                                              Hope that helps a little.

A To Z Blogging Challenge: S is For Sebaceous Cyst

Info pulled from Medline Plus- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000842.htm
"A sebaceous cyst is a closed sac under the skin filled with a cheese-like or oily material. Sebaceous cysts most often arise from swollen hair follicles. Skin trauma can also induce a cyst to form. A sac of cells is created into which a protein called keratin is secreted. These cysts are usually found on the face, neck, and trunk. They are usually slow- growing, painless, freely movable lumps beneath the skin. Occasionally, however, a cyst will become inflamed and tender."

When I was 4 years old I developed a small round bump on the left side of my face. My dad thought it was a pimple and tried several times to 'pop' it. Because of my dad's constant picking at it and squeezing it, the darn thing became inflamed and very sore so my mom finally took me to the doctor who said it wasn't a pimple and sent me to UCLA hospital. *We were living in California at the time and that's the hospital I was born at*

I remember seeing several different doctors and then sitting in the center of a large room with at least 10 doctors in chairs sitting in a circle around me explaining to my mom what they wanted to do to get rid of this lump on my cheek.

One doctor said he wanted to make an incision in my scalp all the way around my ear, pull the flap of skin over, exposing the lump underneath and remove it. That would have left a huge scar and thankfully my mom said she wanted to hear other options because that sounded extreme for such a small lump.

They finally decided to make a small incision right next to the lump on my left cheek and remove the lump that way.

I was 5 years old when I went in for the surgery on my face and when I came out I had a 3 inch incision on the left side of my face. They told my mom that it was a Sebaceous Cyst and they think they got it all and it shouldn't come back.

Fast forward 5 years to when I was 10 years old...the lump on my face returned and my mom took me to the doctor to have it looked at and of course they decided to have it removed once again. When I came out of surgery I was told he went in through the same old scar but had to make it a little bigger...so now I had a 3 1/2 inch incision on the left side of my face, which left a vertical 3 1/2 inch scar on the left side of my face.

I had names like scarface while in school because of it, but I got through it and didn't think much of it until about 3 years ago when a small lump formed on my left shoulder...yep you guessed it..another Sebaceous Cyst...only this time a little while after noticing it, it started to get really big, inflamed, and hurt like you can't imagine.

I don't like doctors so for 2 weeks I just dealt with it until I went in the hospital with a Irregular heartbeat one night. I spent a couple of nights in the hospital in the Cardiac Care Until on the heart monitors while they figured out what was causing my irregular heartbeat, which turns out is no big deal, just something I have to deal with. But while they were doing the work up and checking my lungs ect...the ER doc saw the bandage hubby had put on my shoulder and asked what it was from. I told him that I had big pimple on my back and had some Neosporin on it and just covered it with a bandage, he asked if he could look at it and when he pulled the bandage off he gave me a look like, Oh you have got to be kidding me. He said, "A little pimple, huh? That's more like a huge abscess that needs to be drained and you'll need some antibiotics for. You were gonna have that looked at right?"

I was like yeah while I shook my head no...lol He laughed at me and said since it was so big it was gonna be painful and let me tell you...it was.

He numbed it up, which hurt like a mother and then drained it and told me it was a cyst that had gotten infected and turned into an abscess. When he got all the infection out I started feeling what he was doing and he said this was the part that was gonna hurt and he started popping small pieces of fat inside the hole he made in my shoulder, he said this would help it heal. Then he packed it with gauze, which was going to have to be removed in two days and repacked so the infection could drain out and he put a dressing on it.

The whole time he was doing this my heart monitors were going off like crazy, my heartbeat was all over the place and they saw the irregular heartbeat that I had been feeling for a few hours before going in there.

My advice to you...if you have a small bump under your skin..leave it alone and have a doctor check it out. If it turns out to be a cyst, have it removed before it gets infected because an infected cyst is painful as all get out.

Youtube

I finally was able to figure out how to upload a video to Youtube without that green line going through all my videos so now I have been uploading all my ratty videos I've taken. lol I also added this one of the guy who used to live across from me..He would ride his really loud Harley into the apartment courtyard, start it up in front of people's bedroom windows at 3am and didn't care.


Lucky when he was a baby.


These are 4 ratty brothers I had 4 years ago. This is Ares, Jasper, Brodie and Hades. They've all passed away now but as you can see in this video, they were a playful bunch.

Oh and if you're wondering what I had to do in order to get rid of the green line going through all my videos on youtube..all I had to do was upgrade to the new youtube. That was it. Upload times are much faster for me now too. What used to take 45 minutes to upload a 2 minutes video, now takes 6 minutes. Who knew..

A To Z Blogging Challenge: R is For Rats!

If you know me at all, you had to know I would not pass up an opportunity to show off my rats and try to convince all you non rat lovers out there that rats are great pets! This is Lucky, my little three legged rat. I got him when he was still a tiny baby. A friend of my daughter who works in a pet shop called my daughter and told her that this little guy was going to be snake food or euthanized because it was against their policy to sell rats that are disabled. So she wanted to know if I would take him, which I did and he's such a great little guy. Just look at that face!

He kisses everyone as soon as they put their hands near him. He's so affectionate and loves to come out and play. 

This was Ares. I just lost him last month and he was 3 1/2 years old. That's old for a rat. He was a sweet old guy. I adopted him and his three brothers and they were such a bunch of characters. 

Here are two of Ares brothers, Jasper and Hades. I lost Hades just a couple of months ago..he was 3 years old when he passed away. They might not live a long time but they sure to give us a lot of love in the small amount of time they are with us. Hades and Jasper slept like this all the time. These two were my two biggest rats. Jasper was the biggest at 3 lbs and 19 inches long. 

Of course I had to throw in a funny picture of these two. Jasper doesn't seem to mind that Hades has fallen asleep with his foot on his face. 

This was Fang. He was my cuddler. He spent so much time sitting in my arms, on my shoulder or sleeping on my chest. He always wanted to be held, so much so that sometimes when I opened the cage door to clean the bathroom corner he would take that opportunity to jump on me and sit on my shoulder until I was done and could sit and hold him for a while. If you want a pet that will love you unconditionally, want to cuddle and sneak over to play with your hand...a rat is what you want to get.

And this is Marbles. One of his parents was a hairless rat and so he is half hairless and has patches of hair that are missing because of his mixed parentage. Some of his hair is curly, some is straight and some is gone. He's a nibbler. He says hi by grabbing your finger and nibbling on you, just like he would do to another rat in his pack. 

As you can see, I think rats make great pets and think people who have never thought of owning one should give them a chance. They are not dirty vermin, in fact they are quite clean. They groom themselves several times a day just like a cat does and they pick one corner of their cage to use as a bathroom, which makes keeping the cage cleaner for longer much easier. 

If you would like to learn more about rats, I have written a few articles that you might find interesting. 

Rats: Debunking Common Misconceptions

Rats: What is Popcorning?

How To Clean Your Rat Cage