Busy Week

As the title suggests, this has been a busy week for me: two family members needed help moving, I got a haircut, I'm working 6 days and 50+ hours and of course tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Traditionally, my mom has been the primary cook for the big holiday meal, but last year my brother tried his hand at hosting. I thought he did a very good job, but I think he bit off a little more than he could chew since my mom is back cooking this year. To spread the cooking around a bit, I am preparing a squash casserole side dish and my brother is planning to make a pumpkin cheesecake.

I am not opposed to cooking generally speaking, but I don't really enjoy cooking for my family. Half the time, my dad politely and inexplicably refuses to eat anything I cook (I've never poisoned anyone and it's not bizarre foods that I prepare). My mom tends to be overly critical, and I'm not even sure she's aware of what she's doing. My siblings are both generally pretty picky eaters, so most of the time when I cook, it's just for me.

This week has been pretty as far as the skies are concerned. I am a huge fan of clouds, from sunrises and sunsets to just generally interesting cloud formations. At work this afternoon, my coworkers and I spotted some rainbow clouds. At first, I thought it was just a product of my polarized sunglasses (they can make clouds look colorful when the naked eye can't see it), but it was definitely the real deal. There have also been some pretty sunrises and sunsets, which is one benefit to spending lots of time outside at work.

Other than that, not a whole lot of note has been going on this week for me. I think I'm getting into another cycle of insomnia. Last night, I had a heck of a time falling asleep and the previous night I had a hard time staying asleep. Lucky me, I can simultaneously suffer from two varities of insomnia! The good news is that since starting my new job, it hasn't reared it's head nearly as much as it did prior, when I was more stressed out. Also, working long 11-12 hour work days pretty much makes it easy for you fall asleep when your head hits your pillow.

I'm hoping to be able to write more soon, but I won't make specific promises. That could theoretically make me more accountable and more likely to post, but if I fail to come through, I'd feel bad for failing. Thus, I set myself no specific goal for the next post.

I leave you with this picture I took of this little critter stealing from a pallet in Home Depot.

Meet Turd Ferguson

A few weeks ago, I adopted a baby winter white dwarf hamster (also known as a Siberian or Djungarian hamster). A male hamster had accidentally gotten sent in with a group of females, so naturally babies happened. Since the hamster was free and I already a cage from a previous hamster, I decided to take one home. I selected the one whose coloring I liked best and hoped for a female (they are a little less smelly than the males if you ask me), but it was young enough that it was hard to say for sure what the gender was.

"Hi!"

Of course, I ended up with a male and one whose disposition was a little less than friendly. Every time I try to handle him, he bites. Since he's only about 6 weeks old, his teeth haven't broken the skin yet, but soon he'll be able to draw blood if he wants. I'm trying to work on handling him without him biting, but he even nibbles on leather gloves when I use those to hold him. He may end up just not being a very cuddly guy, which I can live with (my previous hamster was a major biter - maybe it's me?).

Here's the cage set up I have (I bought this brand specifically because you can connect multiple cages and recently added the second red bottomed cage).

Due to his somewhat unfriendly disposition I ended up naming him Turd Ferguson. This name makes me laugh every time I hear it (it comes from a Saturday Night Live sketch in the late 90s or early 2000s which you can find on Hulu if you so desire). The hamster is also a bit of a poop factory, so the name seems fitting all around. Besides, I figure I can shorten it to Gus when necessary. But for now I'm really chuckling every time I use his full name.

I've gone through 3 different wheels trying to find one that is quiet. The one that came with the cage, I knew was noisy from previous experience, but I tried it out for a while to see if I could live with the noise. If you've never had a hamster, here's where it's important to realize that hamsters are nocturnal and tend to run on their wheels at night a lot. The second wheel I tried claimed to be a silent wheel. It
was louder than the first, actually waking me up several times a night.

I like to run at all hours of the night!

The third wheel has so far been pretty quiet. Initially when I put it in the cage, it was squeaky. I removed it and greased it up with vegetable oil (because that's safe for pets) and put it back in place. He instantly climbed on and spent a good 20 minutes licking the oil off the wheel, then ran around quietly. With any luck, it will remain quiet enough to not wake me up every night.

Mmmm! Delicious vegetable oil!

For now, I'm going to keep working on getting him to not bite when I handle him. The leather gloves are helping with me not jumping when he bites because that probably just makes him more nervous and likely to bite. Even if he doesn't end up being very friendly, he'll have a good life with me. I've already bought three different kinds of treats and vegetables just for him. He seemed to really enjoy the pumpkin meat and roasted seeds I gave him. He's really pretty spoiled, so it would be nice if he would sweeten up his personality a little.

Arctic Blast

Hmm, for some reason that title sounds like some kind of ice cream dish. And no, I'm not just hungry because I totally just had a bowl of ice cream. Anyway, the weather has been unseasonably cold here this past week. We had an 80 degree swing in temperatures in a five day period. It was 70 degrees one day and -10 degrees a few days later.

It's freakin' cold out there and I'm low to the ground, do NOT mess with me.

Normally this time of year the average temperatures are in the 50s, so 3 days straight with high temperatures under 20 degrees are not our norm. It's not unheard of to have a cold snap in maybe January or February, but this year we got our chilly weather early. I hope that this is not a sign of the winter to come, but I guess if it is, we'll get used to it. If it's humanly possible to get used to wind chills of -32 degrees (hint: it's not). We even broke a 130+ year old record low temperature for the date a few days ago.

It is literally 3 degrees out here, I feel like going for a swim (forgot to clean out the wading pool before it froze over)!

This is the type of weather where you spend as much time inside as possible. Short trips outside are possible, but anything exposed to the air will be feeling it quickly. I stepped out onto the patio and my eyelashes instantly had ice crystals on them. Anway, enough complaining about how cold it has been, at least we only had a few inches of snow to go along with it. The dogs end up getting cabin fever because they can't stay outside for very long, so when it gets a little warmer they really have a blast running around in the snow.

It's also important to have a buddy to cuddle up with. Here's hoping that it warms up again soon!

Thank You

This is just a quick post for Veteran's Day. I just want to thank anyone who has served for the military because you have sacrificed a lot for those of us who haven't served. Words are not enough to truly express the gratitude I have for you, but it's what I have, so thank you! Also, thank you to those family members of veterans because you sacrificed for the rest of us as well.

The Armed Forces Tribute Garden, Westminster, CO

Feeling Poetic

Other than having a few more days of not so hot luck, not a lot of interest has gone on around these parts. My phone arbitrarily reset itself to its factory settings on Saturday, so I had a super fun time getting all of my stuff set back up the way I wanted it. The good news there was that I only lost about a month's worth of pictures because I had recently downloaded the photos onto my computer. I did lose some cute Halloween pictures, but oh well. It could have been worse...like the time I kind of sort of totally put my cell phone into the washing machine and killed it.

So in lieu of coming up with some fascinating story to tell, I'm going to share some more of my poetry. Lazy posts, FTW! I have accumulated quite a few haiku over the years, so I'll post a few here for you to enjoy.

Dog Dreams
Paws starting to twitch,
Snoring, then softly barking,
What do dogs dream of?

Night
The night is clear
The little stars shine brightly
The moon is golden.

The Hunter
Claws and teeth flashing
as the beast chases his prey
swift death approaches.

Breeze
Light breeze starts to blow,
All the leaves begin to stir,
Mother Nature's song.

Lizard
Little lizard climbs
up the branches of a tree
to bask in the sun.

And I will call that a post. I'm enjoying the new job thus far, but I am definitely more tired lately. In time, I'll adjust and probably feel more like writing actual posts. Until then, I bid you farewell.