penn

Christmas Cheer

Just in case you need a little Christmas cheer to get you through the long days of January . . .

New Snow

The view from the front of our porch:

Looks like we'll have lots of fresh snow tomorrow. The weather reports say we could get anywhere from 10-20 inches! Pretty awesome.

For fun, a picture of Matt helping Lucy check out the new snow:

A few pics

Some scenes from my life over the last few weeks. Just wanted to share something. I'm counting down the days until Thanksgiving break (just two more full weeks and then two short days!). After Thanksgiving break, I have one last week of class and one week of finals. I miss all of you and wish I could be sharing more!

Two of my favorite creatures!

A lovely red plane that floated overhead as I was photographing a soccer match.

This time, I DID take this photo of the moon. Also shot during the soccer match where I saw the plane.

From a few weeks ago. I love fall!

My desk at work. I spent a lot of time here studying and prepping lessons. I'm at least glad I have a space where I can leave things.

Who doesn't love fungi?

We Love Lucy

Two videos of playing with Lucy. She's a bit over a year old and still really energetic and fun. She enriches our lives, as corny as that sounds. The second video is her playing with a toddler friend of ours. She plays really well with kids but will often hide when it becomes too much for her. Better than clawing and biting, which she thankfully does not do.

Pets I have had

An ode to (most of) my pets. I think I may have forgotten a few minor ones here or there, but this is a listing of most of the pets I've had during my life. This list was inspired by Yes and Yes' weekly list; my comment was too long to post, so I just had to make this into a blog post.

In doing this list, I realize I have had SO MANY pets in my life. I'm honestly surprised at this number. This are not all in chronological order because I keep remembering pets and adding them in.

1. Dylan the cat -- discovered in the post office elevator when my dad worked there. Guess what musician my dad loves? Or maybe he loves poetry?

2. Clementine the goldfish, who lived for two year before the introduction of a new fish led to her demise. I'm still pleased that my young self came up with that name. I think I was 6 when I get Clemmy. She was a friendly fish who would always swim to the top of the bowl and say hello whenever someone came into the kitchen.

3 & 4. Circe and Shadow, the two awesome black kitties I had for most of my entire childhood. I could write novels about those two.

5. Dora, my hamster. I adopted her from school after we did maze running experiments on her. She was a smart cookie who could get out of any cage. In retrospect, I shouldn't have taken the smartest hamster.

6. Cinders the guinea pig. I rescued her and she only lived a few months before I had to let her go. She was actually a pretty sweet pet. She scared the crap out of my cats.

7. Kiki the crazy black kitty. We almost named her Donner because of her habit of sneaking up and jumping on us in the middle of the night.

8 & 9. Oh, the dogs! How can I forget? Green the german shepherd and Molly the cocker spaniel were my childhood dogs that led me up to my teen years. We three got into quite a bit of mischief.

10. Belle the beagle, my parents' current dog but really my happy puppy. She gets so excited whenever I come home. For those who haven't seen her, a few pics of us hiking with Belle.

11. Chornaya, which means little black girl in Russian, was my college hamster. Another rescue pet, but this one lived for a year.

12. Ferdinand J the snake, named after King Ferdinand of Spain. My mom gave him to the cable guy after I left him at home when I moved across the country. True story. I wanted to bring him with me, but snakes and long road trips aren't the best idea, and I took two weeks to drive across the country.

13. Bree, a Kerry Blue Terrier. This dog broke my mom's heart. She was awesome and friendly and great to people but not nice to other animals. She escaped from our yard one day and chased a cat into its house. Animal control took her away. I understand, but it was still a super rough situation. We had 6 foot fences and still couldn't keep her in our yard. She was our dog when we first moved to Seattle in 1994.

14. I'd be remiss to not mention Spreckles the bird. I googled to see if I had ever posted a picture of her, and I'm surprised to see I haven't. I think more pictures of past pets are in order! Spreckles is the bird that just won't die. She's had pneumonia several times and is old as all get out, but she keeps truckin'. We got her from a friend who didn't have enough time for a parrot, and she's stuck with us for most of my life. I have a strange relationship with Spreckles. As long as my mom isn't around, we're fine (say, when I'm housesitting for my parents). The second my mom gets back into town, the bird either refuses to acknowledge me or is simply full of anger. And don't even get me started on how she laughs at me if I do something stupid.

15. Lucy the kitty (Luciferase is her full name). We just adopted her last week. She's a shelter kitty, and I am pleased as punch. She is currently sleeping next to me. She is also afraid of the outdoors. I haven't tried a vest on her yet, but she might go for it.

Woah, a plethora of pets. What a menagerie. Lucky for Matt that I don't own all these right now!

Big Changes

So, I cut my hair. A lot. I have mixed feelings; I don't look like me when I look in the mirror. But it is short and fun and entirely different from anything I have ever done before. We'll see if it sticks. I do enjoy doing a bit of experimenting from time to time, and hair is great because it will always grow out again.

Some views:

But wait, that's not all! We also had an addition to our household this week. I know I said I wasn't ready for an animal and blah blah blah . . . but we got a cat! Matt really missed having a cat around, and I did too. We moved to a two-bedroom apartment in mid-August, and we just didn't seem to have many excuses. Technically speaking, I adopted the cat, but Matt has promised to take on the cost of her care (we'll see). She does not yet have a name, but I'll let you know when we think of one. This is just a preliminary picture, as I am at school until Friday and won't be around the cat. (Side note: I'm not sure if I mentioned it on here, but I live at school during the week, at least from Tues to Friday, because the commute is an hour and I have some insanely long days at school.)

The cat is pretty cat-looking. Very standard tabby. I was learning toward a more distinctive looking cat, but Matt really fell in love with this little lady. She is energetic and fun but capable of entertaining herself as well. Hopefully, she settles in well.

I present the kitty and my new hair again:

Turtles

I'm teaching a day camp on turtles this week. Today, my 4-6 year olds got to touch turtles, make their own turtle shells (out of tissue paper and paper plates), and got some turtle clues from old turtle.

While looking up something about turtle anatomy for the class, I stumbled upon this humorous passage. It's not quite appropriate for the age group in my class, so I thought I'd share it with all of you:

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile. -Ogden Nash

It's egg laying season for turtles right now. Turtles leave their ponds to go lay eggs in dirt/rocks/sand, and this often requires crossing roads. Please remember to watch the road as you drive around!

Summer Kittah

We're taking care of a kitty for the summer. I think that's long enough that I'm going to call goal number 61 good. Getting a permanent cat or dog still isn't practical given our living situation, but a temporary kitty is perfect.

This is Miss Adorable. Her name is Snowball (though chosen without regard for the Simpsons, apparently). She is not a stealthy cat, and she totally loses all the staring contests. What she lacks in those cat departments she makes up for with her utterly adorable mews and love of belly scratching.

This is just a quick shot and a good example of her "uh, wha?" look. I'll try and catch some more good shots over the next two months.

My weekend

I spent lots of time with some cute furbabies. I housesat for one of my coworkers and really enjoyed the luxury of a significantly shorter commute to work (~ 25 minutes or less!). I'm also really appreciating being home now; it's amazing how a little break can really help one realize what gets taken for granted on a daily basis.

Here are the animals. It's hard to tell, but the cat only has three legs. She hops around everywhere and can't jump high. Also, a total cuddle bug. There was also a second cat that proved to be more elusive, especially when the camera was out.

Another picture of Archer, the awesome dog. I'm not sure what he is, but it's some mix of collie and a bunch of other things. I wouldn't be surprised if he has some beagle in him. Mostly, he looks like a collie-like fox.

And, finally, I came away with some decor ideas. This is the lovely, calming room where I stayed. I really adore the color scheme (deep red with a lighter blue). Of course, the generous natural lighting helped a lot too. I find it so much easier to get up in the morning when one's room is flooded with light. This is the vibe I eventually want in my room, someday, when we get a place that's not surrounded by forest. I like the forest around our apartment . . . except for the lack of direct light. Anyway, the room:

Snake!

The snake at work laid eggs! It was the craziest thing to watch. I took a video on my cell phone but haven't had time to try and piece it together for uploading to youtube. Maybe some day when I'm not busy biking, running, gardening, or playing board games (wow, I just made my life sound more entertaining than I think it is!).

Here's the egg coming out (whoops, wrong pic the first time!):

And here she is with 3 of her 10 total eggs. The eggs were taken out to be misted and incubated to ensure babies. In the wild, snakes lay their eggs underground in damp areas so the eggs stay moist. Then, they leave the eggs and go about their merry business; they don't take care of the babies. Since they can't dig in a wood bottomed cage, it's not the best place to leave the eggs.

And, just for fun, a picture of me with one of our other snakes at work. I do enjoy getting to handle the snakes frequently.