My OperaWell, hello there (again) !
Sunday, January 30, 2011 6:42:25 PM
As you can see I haven't kept up with this blog...well...at ALL. I started it originally because it was required for a class I was taking, but the professor never really followed through, and obviously neither did I. However, a dear friend of mine recently started a blog so that she can keep her family and friends updated on her new baby and life across the country, and she inspired me to get back on my own blog. I used to write in a journal all the time, and in the last few years I've found I only do that when I'm upset, and its a way for me to vent. This is going to be more of a way for me to just sort of....vent about everything in life rather than just the bad.
For instance, in one of my earlier posts, I was telling how laughably fat my poor dog Zen was. Well she has achieved massive weight loss success! We put her on Science Diet Light food once we moved in, and limited her treats for when she actually does something, or for when we leave the house for work and she goes in the crate. She now goes in the crate when we go to work no matter what, after she destroyed three sets of blinds from the bedroom in either a spiteful or curious rage. In addition to the blinds, she was eating right out of the bag of ferret food, and we didn't catch it until we realized that she had stopped losing weight. One day we came home from work and the bedroom looked like the Tazmanian devil had been there with a few of his friends, and from that day on, Zen goes in the crate when we leave the house.
Anyway, back to her weight loss success...
This is a photo from before we moved into the apartment. Zen and Gus used to like to sit on my bed and watch out the window at the neighbors. Gus still looks exactly the same. Check out the huge bulge on the side of Zen! She is ENORMOUS!
Now...
These pictures do a pretty good job of showing you what she looks like now. I have an EXCELLENT shot of her that I got done at Picture People Petco, but I haven't scanned it, so these will have to do. She weighs about thirty pounds now, and she is like a puppy again. She's much more active and she's definitely more healthy than she was when we moved in. My mom always asks what it is we feed her, and when I tell her she gives me the "oh thats way too expensive" story (her dog is MONSTROUSLY fat). But the difference in Zen is soooo worth the price of the food. You get what you pay for sometimes, and Zen's proof of it.
Hmm....what else is different around here? Bankie died, my poor boy. One day he had blood on his nose and around his manly parts, but didn't seem to be in pain. We weren't sure if he did it himself, or if one of the other ferrets beat him up, so we cleaned him up, and put him in the ferret apartment (where he had to stay after he had surgery) so that we could monitor him. Steve got out of work early that day, and when he got home Bankie seemed ok, but by the time I got home that night he had died. We got a pretty little wooden box for his remains, and he sits on top of my breakable stuff cabinet next to Brody's urn.
My friend Jenn had two ferrets, and her landlord wouldn't let her keep them, so we adopted them from her and named them Rufus and LaFours. They're bullies sometimes, but overall everyone gets along okay. LaFours is an albino, and he's the only one who bites for no reason. It took me months to get him to sit nicely so I could clip his nails, and he still doesn't take many treats from me. Rufus realized that it was more beneficial for him to be nice to me much more quickly. He has no problem getting his nails clipped and even though he doesn't give kisses like Renee, Bethany, and Randall, he does take treats now.
We got Oz (our little blue parakeet) a playmate, because HE still hasn't gotten over his fear of me. He has been terrified of me since day one, and I feel terrible about it. So we got him a white friend and named her Hedwig. They get along nicely, and they like to sing to older music, like the Doors, Pink Floyd, and Billy Joel, as well as newer stuff like A Perfect Circle and Minus the Bear. They do NOT like Killswitch Engage.
The fish have all gotten enormous, and the Snooks have pretty much taken over the tank. The two electric blue Jack Dempseys we had originally didn't survive, but Steve got himself a single Jack Dempsey (not a blue one this time) and he has his own little cave and doesn't take any crap from them.
That about sums up the animal life here in 308A. As for the humans....
Steve is in his last semester at Brookdale, and will have his degree after the summer session. He plans to transfer to Rutgers in the fall. He's been doing very well and is finally past all the prerequisites, so that he is getting to the classes he has been looking forward to. He's on the hunt for a new job, since the one he has...well...sucks. Hopefully things will change for the better for him very soon.
I left the PIcture People and now I work at Wawa, much closer to home. The Picture People was great for a while, but there was really no room for me to move up that corporate ladder, as there are only a few studios within a reasonable distance from home, and none of the managers there are leaving unless they get fired, any time soon. It took me a few months to realize that I didn't really have much of a chance at a real career there, and the travel back and forth to Bridgewater just wasn't practical. Aside from the traffic I had to sit in day and night (Route 287 is the worst, no matter what time of day), the gas and wear and tear on my poor car was terrible. I started working at Wawa in the summer time for extra cash, and soon my part time job became my full time job, and vice versa. Now I work for Picture People in Woodbridge seasonally as a photographer, which means I only have to do the best part of the job, and thats worth what they pay me
I do however, miss shooting regularly and cannot WAIT for warm weather!
*sigh* Wow it feels pretty good to write. Is that weird? Now that I think we're all caught up, from now on I'll get to posting the day to day antics of our little family of creatures!
For instance, in one of my earlier posts, I was telling how laughably fat my poor dog Zen was. Well she has achieved massive weight loss success! We put her on Science Diet Light food once we moved in, and limited her treats for when she actually does something, or for when we leave the house for work and she goes in the crate. She now goes in the crate when we go to work no matter what, after she destroyed three sets of blinds from the bedroom in either a spiteful or curious rage. In addition to the blinds, she was eating right out of the bag of ferret food, and we didn't catch it until we realized that she had stopped losing weight. One day we came home from work and the bedroom looked like the Tazmanian devil had been there with a few of his friends, and from that day on, Zen goes in the crate when we leave the house.
Anyway, back to her weight loss success...
This is a photo from before we moved into the apartment. Zen and Gus used to like to sit on my bed and watch out the window at the neighbors. Gus still looks exactly the same. Check out the huge bulge on the side of Zen! She is ENORMOUS! Now...
These pictures do a pretty good job of showing you what she looks like now. I have an EXCELLENT shot of her that I got done at Picture People Petco, but I haven't scanned it, so these will have to do. She weighs about thirty pounds now, and she is like a puppy again. She's much more active and she's definitely more healthy than she was when we moved in. My mom always asks what it is we feed her, and when I tell her she gives me the "oh thats way too expensive" story (her dog is MONSTROUSLY fat). But the difference in Zen is soooo worth the price of the food. You get what you pay for sometimes, and Zen's proof of it.
Hmm....what else is different around here? Bankie died, my poor boy. One day he had blood on his nose and around his manly parts, but didn't seem to be in pain. We weren't sure if he did it himself, or if one of the other ferrets beat him up, so we cleaned him up, and put him in the ferret apartment (where he had to stay after he had surgery) so that we could monitor him. Steve got out of work early that day, and when he got home Bankie seemed ok, but by the time I got home that night he had died. We got a pretty little wooden box for his remains, and he sits on top of my breakable stuff cabinet next to Brody's urn.
My friend Jenn had two ferrets, and her landlord wouldn't let her keep them, so we adopted them from her and named them Rufus and LaFours. They're bullies sometimes, but overall everyone gets along okay. LaFours is an albino, and he's the only one who bites for no reason. It took me months to get him to sit nicely so I could clip his nails, and he still doesn't take many treats from me. Rufus realized that it was more beneficial for him to be nice to me much more quickly. He has no problem getting his nails clipped and even though he doesn't give kisses like Renee, Bethany, and Randall, he does take treats now.
We got Oz (our little blue parakeet) a playmate, because HE still hasn't gotten over his fear of me. He has been terrified of me since day one, and I feel terrible about it. So we got him a white friend and named her Hedwig. They get along nicely, and they like to sing to older music, like the Doors, Pink Floyd, and Billy Joel, as well as newer stuff like A Perfect Circle and Minus the Bear. They do NOT like Killswitch Engage.
The fish have all gotten enormous, and the Snooks have pretty much taken over the tank. The two electric blue Jack Dempseys we had originally didn't survive, but Steve got himself a single Jack Dempsey (not a blue one this time) and he has his own little cave and doesn't take any crap from them.
That about sums up the animal life here in 308A. As for the humans....
Steve is in his last semester at Brookdale, and will have his degree after the summer session. He plans to transfer to Rutgers in the fall. He's been doing very well and is finally past all the prerequisites, so that he is getting to the classes he has been looking forward to. He's on the hunt for a new job, since the one he has...well...sucks. Hopefully things will change for the better for him very soon.
I left the PIcture People and now I work at Wawa, much closer to home. The Picture People was great for a while, but there was really no room for me to move up that corporate ladder, as there are only a few studios within a reasonable distance from home, and none of the managers there are leaving unless they get fired, any time soon. It took me a few months to realize that I didn't really have much of a chance at a real career there, and the travel back and forth to Bridgewater just wasn't practical. Aside from the traffic I had to sit in day and night (Route 287 is the worst, no matter what time of day), the gas and wear and tear on my poor car was terrible. I started working at Wawa in the summer time for extra cash, and soon my part time job became my full time job, and vice versa. Now I work for Picture People in Woodbridge seasonally as a photographer, which means I only have to do the best part of the job, and thats worth what they pay me
I do however, miss shooting regularly and cannot WAIT for warm weather!*sigh* Wow it feels pretty good to write. Is that weird? Now that I think we're all caught up, from now on I'll get to posting the day to day antics of our little family of creatures!
