rachaelwynter I haven't forgotten that promise a long time ago to send you something hand-made.

Unfortunately, I have periodically let it fall to the back of my head because I don't know what to send you. I was thinking about an 8 x 11 print of a picture I've taken but...I dunno if anything that I've taken is something you'd be interested in hanging on your wall. :/

Would you be an antelope and pick something from my deviant art gallery or lemme know what kind of pictures you'd be interested in?

Also: who wants to be my sent-notes-random-post-cards-cards-whatever-old fashioned pen pal?

Also, also: I forgot to thank you guys for your comments to my mother's tribute and the reactions there of. It really was amazing and made me all happy-tingly. Thank you!

First official "best" first photos taken with the Canon!

















PS, half of our area of Florida seems to be on fire. Awesome. There's smoke billowing in the distance from our backyard. It's close, but not close enough for me to feel too panicky.

I asked Shawn's father, "Should be worry about packing up, or starting too? Just in case?" And he's like, "Yeah, when they knock on the door and tell us we gotta go."

Okay.

I guess the good thing is, if things turn really ugly--I can totally take some awesome shots of it.

(In the long run, homes, computers, clothes, and belongings are not as awesome as not being burned to death.)

WHAT IS THIS IN THIS CANON BOX?



OOOH, IT'S BRINGING SEXY BACK!

Some of you may remember my post a while back about Raven, our getting-elderly-pee machine.

The issue wasn't that Raven was going outside the litter box purposefully, the issue was it seemed to be such a struggle to get into the box, she'd hang half her ass off the side (because she'd only go as far as RIGHT at the front) and then pee. Without squatting. So of course, there she'd be IN the litter box, peeing...out of it.

We've mostly solved that issue with a random find at a local pet store. This experiement has been running since a few days after asking advice and I gotta say, it's been pretty kick ass.

This dog litter box.





Yes. Dog. I am so far behind the 'pet times,' I guess. I hadn't a clue that they were making dog litter boxes. The one we have as pictured above is roughly as deep on the back and sides as the largest cat litter box, but without the huge wall of plastic at the front for Raven to jump over.

In fact, I'm not sure if you can tell by the picture, but there's a little plastic piece that fits over the opening that can be removed too--forming a lip that's nearly flush with the floor. Maybe no higher than an inch or two. Essentially, any cat with joint problems or too old to jungle-gym all over the place just to go poop can waltz right in and go.

With the old litter box, I was cleaning up her pee on the mat (a little blue mat that picks up some of the litter from their paws) four or five times a day. Now, with the newer, lower doggy litter box I might catch her having an accident once a week. With the added bonus of the puppy training pads around the front, I have even less clean up than before.

This dog litter box was a large--apparently you can order much, much larger ones. This will set you back $30 dollars, but, for Shawn and I, that really wasn't much to ensure our ol' kitty comfort and ease. Flora took to it in seconds too. So that's one worry out of the way.

It's heavy duty plastic and really durable so far, even with all the scratching and clawing. It's surprisingly light and easy to pick up when empty and clean. I really, really, really recommend this instead of the usual cat litter boxes if you have room for it and don't mind the fact there's no cover for it.

In other pet news: Some of you may recall that I was trying to move Nugget from a mostly seed and some pellet diet, to an complete pellet diet. We figured out what was wrong with the first set of pellets: they came in three colors, two shapes. Red, green as little beads and yellow/beige as banana shaped as well as smelling like fruit. He would eat all the red and green and leave the banana. So when he ran out of the little round red and green pellets he'd behave as if he were starving to death, tweeting and chirping and chirping and tweeeeeeting--leaving the 'naner shaped ones. So we didn't get it at first, as his food bowl would still be pretty full.

Eventually, we caught on and changed him over to Zupreem pellets. These pellets are round only with pieces of real dried fruit mixed in. He eats all of them without issue and we haven't fed him any seeds at all for over a week and a half. I'm very relieved we figured things out, as we realized that seed diets were simply awful for birdies.

And that's it on the pet front!

For the tl;dr crowd: Cat's peeing less due to a doggy litter pan and the bird's now eating an all pellet & fruit diet. Mel's a crazy animal lady. Blahblahblah.

P.S RANDOMRANDOMRANDOM: MY CAMERA WASN'T DELIVERED FRIDAY SO IT MIGHT COME TODAY AND I'M STILL EXCITED OH LAWD.

Thank you for the six am's wiping up baby puke, patting backs and warming bottles with one slipper on and one slipper off.

Thank you for silently crying along side us when we wouldn't stop at four in the morning.

Thank you for changing 230293023920392039203 diapers full of poop.

Thank you for cleaning the snot from our noses.

Thank you for taking warm, clean face cloths to our filthy little hands and wondering with much amusement what you'll ever do with us.

Thank you for the tears hidden behind closed doors or turned backs and all the, "Mommy'll be there in a minute, she just needs a few seconds."

Thank you for sacrificing decades of your life to make sure we don't grow up to be monsters.

Thank you for second chances--either mine, for being an idiot child, or yours--for whatever reason. Raising a child is never easy, nor is being human. Some times we make mistakes with our lives. Bad things happen, but you're our mother and it's hard to hate you.

Thank you for letting us make those mistakes with those friends you knew were bad news, that boy you saw right away that would break our hearts, or letting us date that girl you tried to warn us was going to be bad news. Letting us fall and stumble for the first time must have been so very hard for you.

Thank you, most of all, for being a mother.

Thank you, Mom, for being my mother.

You will need one microwave, one packet of microwavable oatmeal and either the amount called for of water or milk found on the back of the package, (your preference) for making your oatmeal.

Step 1
Blearily search through packets of half-opened angel hair pasta, push aside those odd long bbq matches and shove the macaroni out of the way. Find oatmeal box.

Step 2
Remove one packet of oatmeal and haphazardly replace the oatmeal box in between the mess of crap you just dug it out of.

Step 3
Straighten out all the boxes that have now fallen over.

Step 4
In my case, I like milk in my oatmeal instead of water. So I shuffled off to our fridge to get the milk. You may of course, shuffle off to your nearest water source here, instead.

Step 5
Open all of the cabinets in hopes of finding a measuring cup that is clean.

Step 6
Find measuring cup but realize it is dirty. Wash it. Dry it out.

Step 7
Fill it with suggested amount of water or milk. Pour in a--

Step 8
Get a bowl.

Step 9
Pour milk in bowl.

Step 10
Open up oatmeal package and pray to the geek gods you don't jerk it open spraying dried oatmeal all over the place. Pour into milk. I like to stir it a bit before putting it in the microwave.

Step 11
Read instructions. Instructions say 1 to 2 minutes. Now, I like my oatmeal thick. Watery isn't my thang, and the last time I made it, it turned out this way. So, I choose 2 minutes.

Step 12
During the two minutes, I like to take this time to put everything away.

Step 13
Open microwave door. Notice swiftly after two minutes there is oatmeal plastered to the ceiling, the sides, the glass dish, cooked to the edges of the bowl and literally none in the bowl itself...

Step 14
Wash out bowl. Wash out microwave. Trudge back to the fridge for milk and get another packet of oatmeal. Measure milk, so on and so forth.

Step 15
Pour milk into bowl, except this time, pour too fast. Notice that there is hardly any milk in the bowl but milk all over the kitchen cabinet and dripping onto the floor.

Step 16
Clean up milk.

Step 17
Remeasure milk. Pour again. S l o w e r this time.

Step 18
Open packet. Except, not really. The strip you've torn off the top didn't open the packet.

Step 19
Search utility drawer for scissors, not trusting yourself to try to open it again due to common issues with flying oatmeal after suddenly opened container.

Step 20
Cut open packet, pour in.

Step 21
MICROWAVE FOR ONE MINUTE. ONLY.

Step 22
Remove from microwave and resolve never to make oatmeal again. For at least a month.

How has your morning been? :D

Over at 2phatgeeks.com, I recently posted a tribute to my mother for mother's day.

According to one commenter, Seien, my mother's antics were disgusting and she feels sorry for my children and hopes that they get away from me as soon as they possibly can.

Feel free to read her kick ass commentary on my mother's parenting skills, because obviously, I turned out to be a child-raping-frothing-at-the-mouth-murderer.

Gosh, I just love you, Internet!

I have the Imperial March and Duel of the Fates as part of my work-out music. What music do you listen to, or consider a must have for your exercises?