Frankencage

When we adopted Flower she was tiny, about the size of an adult teddy bear hamster and she hasn't grown much at all. She's still a dainty little girl but we wanted to give her more room to run around. So Ken decided to wire together two cages and give her twice as much room. We already had both cages. 

So Ken cute some of the wires off the top of the cage to make a hole for her to get to the second story and used a metal file to file the edges so they wouldn't cut her.

Then he wired both top and bottom together and she started exploring immediately.

I think she approves. 

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. Someone asked me why I do a 'Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to samples like these at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received:

Several samples of diapers and wipes from Huggies.
An autographed picture of Jim Cantore from The Weather Channel.
2 Nexcare bandages.

What freebies did you receive this week?

Double Post!: Yahoo Contributor Network Has Shut Down and How To Make A Dreamcatcher

The site that I have been publishing my articles since 2006 has shut down and is no longer online which means all of my articles are no longer online. Therefore I'll be posting most of them here on my blog over the next few months.

Because I have so many articles to post I may not be posting the Freebie Friday, Happy Raturday and Weekly Rat Facts posts each week but I will try to post them at least once during the month. I had over 200 articles published between December of 2006 and June of 2014 and had almost made it to 1 Million page views on my articles. I'm happy to have had the experience of Associated Content when it first began and then YCN when it was bought by Yahoo and they changed the name. But I'm bummed that my source of extra income has now been squashed.

But this is a wake up call for people who write for sites such as this one. Always back up your articles in a file in case the website disappears over night. Not only writing sites but other sites as well, you have to make sure you do things like cash out as soon as possible if you are making money on them or points that can be turned into money or gift cards. This is the 4th website that I was making money on that has closed down in a relatively short amount of time and some sites will disappear over night and not let you have time to cash out the points you have accumulated.

Like with the survey sites I get points on, I always make sure to cash out as soon as possible in case they decide to close up shop overnight and my points could be lost. It's happened before.

Anyway, I'll be posting a lot of rat and hamster related articles as well as a few other subjects here over the next few months.

Hope you enjoy them. Here's the first one...

How To Make A Dreamcatcher

To make a dream catcher is a lot easier than you might think.

Here's what you'll need:

About 7 feet of thin suede 

glue 

6 inch metal or wooden ring 

waxed nylon string (I've used dental floss and it works great) 

12-16 pony beads in the colors you want 

12-16 feather in the colors you want 

scissors 

clothes pin

First glue one side of the thin suede to the ring and affix the clothes pin to hold it in place until it dries. When it's dry take the clothes pin off and wrap the suede around the ring tightly until you reach where you started. Cut off any remaining suede and glue it in place. Again place the clothes pin over it to hold it until it dries.

After it has thoroughly dried your ready to make the webbing on the inside. Tie one end of the waxed nylon sting or dental floss to the ring, make 8-9 half hitch knots around the ring spacing them about 1 1/2 - 2 inches apart, keeping the thread pulled snug between the knots. (If you don't know how to make a Half hitch knot, go here and look at the diagrams. That website is where I learned how to make them. It's easier to learn by pictures than by someone trying to explain to you what a Half hitch knot is, I think.

Begin the next row of the web in the middle of the string that you just weaved. You should begin to see a spider web forming. As your weaving you can add small buttons or pony beads to the string that will hang in the spider web after it's done. Continue weaving the same way until you have a small hole left in the center of your dreamcatcher. Then tie a double knot and add a small drop of glue so it holds and let dry. You now have a beautiful dreamcatcher.

Now cut three 7" pieces of the thin suede and tie two of them on either side of your ring about half way up using a double knot, then tie the remaining one to the bottom in the center. You can now add whatever color pony beads you wish. Add 2-4 beads to each piece of suede and tie a small knot, push 2-3 feathers up inside the beads, securing them with a small amount of glue.

To make the loop to hang your Dream Catcher, use a 8" piece of suede. Fold it in half and tie a knot in the open end. At the top of the ring, attach the lacing slipping the loop end through the ring and then around the ring and over the knot. Pull the lacing tight to secure it in place.

After you've gotten good at it you can make themed dream catchers. I've made one for Halloween using black suede and black and white feathers and attached a skull button to the webbing. I also made a Valentines one using red and white feathers, maroon suede and heart shaped buttons in the webbing. Have fun with it.

If you don't know where to get the supplies I would suggest any craft or hobby store. I personally use Joannes.

I realize there are people out there that think it's rude and disrespectful to make 'themed' dreamcatchers for holidays like Halloween and quite frankly, I don't care. This is a craft and being such, it can be made to fit any theme or holiday that someone wants to make it fit for. 

The Birthday Menace

Oh dear gawd nooo. What is this creepy little elf doing at birthday parties now? It's not bad enough that I see pictures and hear stories about this weirdo little elf around Christmas time but now he's creeping into birthday's as well?

He's supposed to be one of Santa's elves so what is he doing at a birthday party, ya know other than being a total creeper?

To me this shows just how damned greedy the company that makes this little treasure really is. It's not good enough that families all over are getting little Tommy an Elf on The Shelf to hang around and spy on the family all Christmas long and report back to the fat man, noooo now the little bastard has to invade other aspects of our childs life and be around for their birthday parties too? Next we'll be seeing the High School Graduation Elf. Nope, retailers and product companies can just calm the hell down and wait their turn or until their holiday comes around. No cheating!

Sorry but that Elf is a creepy little bastard.

Stop Throwing A Party For Every Event In Your Life!

If you know a lot of people and have a lot of friends, you've probably received some interesting party invitations for parties like the one above. It's a Gender Reveal Party. Yes, that's where the proud parents throw a party to reveal the sex of their baby. 

WTF?

No one but you, the grandparents and maybe your closest friends are going to give a flying *&^% as long as it's a baby and not a dinosaur or half alien from another planet. There's really no need for all these weird ass parties. 

How about a "My First Menstruation" party? No? Too much? I bet someone out there had had one. 

Hey, I'm going through menopause..let's have a party for that! I'll serve ice water and give out fans and some xanax for the mood swings. 

Oh and there's the "Divorce Party" You get divorced and throw yourself and reverse wedding reception. Yes, this is a real thing.

Oh and maybe the best one yet..."The Potty Parties" Yes, the parents want everyone and their uncle to know their little pride and joy has learned how to use the toilet. O.o

When did we start having parties for every event in our lives? When did this become a thing?

Happy Raturday!

Welcome to a new weekly blog post I'm calling, Raturday! I've seen Caturday and while that's really cute, I think the rats needs some photo time so everyone can see how cute these little animals are. I've gotten permission from Rat Logic's fb page to share their pictures on my blog. So get ready to smile because these are cute. 

*click pictures to enlarge*

Dealing With Menopause- Signs, Symptoms and Relief

So a few months ago I noticed the beginning signs of menopause and I thought to myself, ok no biggie I'll just let nature take it's course and be done with it. 

That is until the hot flashes, headaches, mood swings, itching and nausea started. I'd already decided not to take a prescription hormone therapy drug because most of those drugs like Premarin are made by keeping horses pregnant all the time and collecting their urine to make the pills. Most of the foals are fattened and sent to slaughter houses or sent to meat auctions. I don't condone the abuse and horrendous conditions these horses are kept in therefore I would never take the medicine made from it.

What I have been taking are herbal supplements, herbal tea and eating crackers. 

The two herbal supplements I've been taking are Black Cohosh which gets rid of the hot flashes and St Johns Wart which helps with fatigue, mood swings and depression often caused by menopause. 

After doing some research I also found that some women experience nausea during menopause. This is actually my biggest problem right now. After reading more about it, I found that drinking less coffee and more herbal teas as well as eating crackers will help settle the stomach. I had some herbal tea in the back on one of my cabinets and went ahead and tried it along with some crackers and I was amazed the difference it made. I really didn't expect it to make any difference but I've since bought a lot more herbal teas and don't drink coffee hardly at all now which has helped to settle my stomach so much. 

It's also been 30 days since I've eaten beef. 

That may not sound like a big deal to you but I read that meats high in protein like beef can trigger hot flashes and they were very right, so can caffeine and a lot of extra sugar.  I hardly ate meat before this but I'm eating a lot less now. Hubby eats meat so we still get some just not as much and he's ok with not eating beef  anymore at least for a while. 

So more vegetables and fruits, less caffeine and sugar and more herbal supplements and herbal teas for me. I never would have thought that I would be doing any of this but it's helping and that's what matters. Plus I'm having fun trying out all the herbal teas I had no idea about.

I had been drinking around 12 cups of coffee a day and I've never taken a vitamin or herbal supplement in my life other than the flintstone's vitamins my mom gave me as a kid. So you can see that this is a huge change for me. Hope the info helps out someone else who is going through this. 

Weekly Rat Facts: They Learn To Ignore You

Usually when I go to the cages in the morning to do a spot cleaning and clean out the potty areas, they all come running to play and see what treat I've brought. But sometimes they will ignore me, play hard to get and stay in their beds to see if I will come to them. Flower did that to me the other day. She stuck her head out of the cube to see what I was doing... and when I didn't give her a treat...

She laid back down inside the cube but kept peeking at me until she heard the crackle of the food bags and then she came running over. I found it quite amusing.

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. Someone asked me why I do a 'Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to samples like these at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received:

A notebook and pen set from Chatabout
Diapers and Wipes
Tums chewables
Tums Refreshers

Las Vegas Sky

Last week we had rain clouds right as the sun was setting and I thought they would make good pictures. I was right.

This was taken from the alley behind my apartment complex.

The clouds let out a little rain and a few bolts of lightning but then went away.

I live really close to a few stores, that's why there are so many signs. Plus on the far left is the off ramp to the freeway.

I thought the sky looked pretty cool though.

And I got a pretty good shot of the moon.

Recipe: Chayote Squash

When Ken went to the store I asked him to pick up some more fresh fruits and vegetables and even some we hadn't tried before so I was excited when he came back with this squash because I've never made it or eaten it before. 

I asked a few friends on fb if they knew any good recipes for it but they were no help..LOL So I decided to make mine with some onion.

So I looked online and found a few ways to make it but no real good recipes so I made my own way to make it.

First I peeled and diced it into large chunks.

Then I boiled it for a few minutes to get it soft.

In the mean time I diced a yellow onion and sauteed it in a little butter.

I added a little more butter when I added the squash.

When the Chayote was softer, I drained it and added it to the onions and sauteed them for about 10 more minutes until cooked all the way through. I added salt, pepper and season salt to this and served it with the rest of the dinner I made. I came out really good. It has a mild apple/pear flavor but it's very mild and this would soak up and flavors you added to the pan to cook it in. 

Rats Eating Ice Cream

I grabbed an ice cream cone out of the freezer and turned around and all the rats were starring at me. So I gave them all a bite. each video is only a few seconds long because they all did the same thing...grab as much in their mouth and spit it out to eat in their cage. lol


Flower grabbed a good mouthful.



I think Scribbles grabbed more than the rest and he spit it out to eat.

They were happy.

Happy Raturday!

Welcome to a new weekly blog post I'm calling, Raturday! I've seen Caturday and while that's really cute, I think the rats needs some photo time so everyone can see how cute these little animals are. I've gotten permission from Rat Logic's fb page to share their pictures on my blog. So get ready to smile because these are cute. 

*click pictures to enlarge*

Medical Marijuana, Guns and Child Abuse

So recently I read an article that stated that in Las Vegas the laws are such that you can have a Medical Marijuana Card or a gun but you can't legally have both. According to 8 News Now, "Essentially, anyone who has a medical marijuana card can legally possess marijuana in southern Nevada, but not a gun. And a card holder who bought a gun legally -- and then obtained a card -- is supposed to give that gun up. It's a problem that's just beginning to take shape but is likely to grow as legal marijuana dispensaries open and more people obtain medical marijuana cards. Under federal law, you can't buy any kind of firearm if you have a state-issued medical marijuana card because marijuana is still illegal federally."

Now I don't have a problem with this law as you probably could guess. I've been stating my opposition for regulated, legal marijuana for a long time and will not stop because it shouldn't be legal. It's not a medicine it's a drug that people use to get high...simple as that. 

I know someone who started smoking "medical marijuana" a few years ago because they needed it for supposed anxiety, back pain, headaches, and PTSD related symptoms. So how come a few years later after having been smoking themselves silly they still don't have relief from any of these things? They still don't go out because they still have anxiety, still have supposed back and head pain and still supposedly are suffering from PTSD..so how is it working? It's not! That's my whole point. Omg open your drugged out, blood shot eyes and realize it's not working. 

Recently I read another article that tells of people who are losing their kids because they have medical marijuana in the house with minor children. Some don't see this as child abuse but if you've been reading my blog for any amount of time you know that I do, as I've talked about just this subject before. I consider it child abuse because no matter what room in your house you smoke it, the smoke is going to drift into other parts of the house and your minor children ARE going to be exposed to pot which is a drug and that in and of itself should be enough for child abuse charges to be brought against you. 

I would actually like a law that went a step further and banned anyone who had minor children from getting a Medical Marijuana Card until the minor children were over the age of 18. It doesn't even matter if the kids don't live with the parents full time because parents have weekend visitation at times when couples have split up or divorced and kids should never be exposed to marijuana.

It looks as though pot is here to stay but the laws governing it need to play catch up so that kids, pets, and people who don't want to be exposed to drugs, aren't. 

Weekly Rat Facts: Sleeping

Rats will sleep in different positions depending on how they feel. 

For example if it's hot in the place they are being kept they will flatten themselves as much as possible and lay splayed out and not in their beds. Although some rats will sleep like this for no reason. 

If there are more than a few rats in a cage together, they will sometimes lay in what we call rattie piles. Where you would think the one on the bottom can't breathe but they are just fine and comfortable. 

Lucky in the above picture has started laying on his back for whatever reason. He's been doing it for sometime now and I guess he just found a new position he really likes. 

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. Someone asked me why I do a 'Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

You can find links to samples like these at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received: 

I won a book from a blog contest on SOS Aloha called Betrayed by Rebecca York

A sample of Biolage Shampoo and Conditioner

A sample of Murad Acne Clearing Solution

A Sample of Olay Regenerist

I also won a $10 Amazon gift card from Shelley Munro's blog contest. You should definitely check out her blog. She's an author and writes very tempting, romances. 

So did you win anything or receive any freebies this week?

Foster Care

 I've heard a lot recently about the foster care system and how some kids are better off being taken away from their parents if the parents are doing drugs, can't care for them ect. But I can tell you from experience that that's not always the case.

When I was 17 years old my mom ended up serving time in prison for child endangerment, child abuse and possession of cocaine. My brother and I ended up in foster care. He was only in foster care for about a month before he went to live with our dad. I knew my dad and step mother were using drugs and drinking and that he was very abusive so I told the judge I didn't want to go with him so I lived in a foster home for 6 months when I was 17 years old. My foster mother didn't like having someone as old as me and she let me know it every chance she got. My foster mother locked all of us in our rooms at night at 8pm and didn't let us out until 8am the next morning. We had a bucket in the room that we used for a bathroom and we had to empty it in the morning. She said she locked us in because some of us weren't allowed to go outside or have unsupervised phone conversations. I told my social worker and she said it was fine for her to do.

Before we were allowed to eat oatmeal in the morning we had to finish our chores which usually took an hour. The other 6 girls in the foster home with me were all really young, all under the age of 11. There were two sisters that got there the same time I did, one was 11 and one was 5 years old. Their parents had died in a car crash and their social worker was looking for another other family members to come take them. But they were there the entire 6 months I was.

The 5 year old would cry for her parents all the time and "linda" my foster mother would lock this poor girl in the bedroom until she stopped crying. Again, I told my social worker and she said it was fine. The last time I went to court, I was taken into the judges chambers and told that I couldn't go back to my foster parents home because my foster mother called the court and told them that I had set fire to her family bible that had been sitting on the living room table right before I left.

Now I will tell you right now that I did no such thing. She was just sick of me being there and questioning her methods and reporting her to my social worker. So I ended up going home with my dad. My dad and step mother spent all of their money on drugs so all we had to eat for over a month were potatoes but because they didn't pay the power bill we couldn't cook them on the electric stove, my brother and I had to take our potatoes out to the gas grill in the pool courtyard of our apartment complex and bbq them. We did this everyday for over a month. When my mom got out of prison we went to live with her. Thankfully she was no longer doing drugs at that point.

My dad and step mother no longer drink or do drugs and they don't even remember most of the things they did when they were high.

So I have a slanted view on foster care and foster homes.

Big Brother

Have you heard of this reality tv show? I actually don't want much reality tv, it just seems so fake and scripted but I have a confession to make. I watch Big Brother and I love it.

Hangs head in shame...

And the totally hilarious thing is that I've now got ken watching it even though he won't admit it. Ken will sit at the computer and act like he isn't listening but then he'll ask me, "What just happened? Who is HOH? Who got voted out?" lol

He'll sit on the couch with me acting like he isn't interested but one time when I didn't pause it when he went to the kitchen he was mad. LOL

Yep, I got hubby hooked as well.

My Grandson Turns 18 Months Old

In a couple of days this little guy will be 18 months old. Time fly's let me tell you. He looks like someone spiked his milk. lol 

Such a happy kid.

When he saw I was getting the camera while I was babysitting him, he ran over to the couch and smiled like this. lol 

"Yeah milk" lol 

Happy Raturday!

Welcome to a new weekly blog post I'm calling, Raturday! I've seen Caturday and while that's really cute, I think the rats needs some photo time so everyone can see how cute these little animals are. I've gotten permission from Rat Logic's fb page to share their pictures on my blog. So get ready to smile because these are cute. 

*click pictures to enlarge*