Epic Fail

So, NaNoWriMo is officially over and I failed horribly. The last time I posted any kind of word count update was the beginning of November and I had under 2,000 words. It predicted that I'd be done with my novel in April. That was the beginning of the month though....I have no idea what it would predict if I looked at it now. Probably November of NEXT year. lol.

But I'm not really disappointed that I didn't finish...just that I didn't look at the winner page ahead of time. You get all kinds of cool stuff as a winner of NaNoWriMo...you get your manuscript published for free by a random, generic publishing company (just one copy of it of course) and a whole bunch of special offers on cool stuff!! If I had known that I would have cheated...no lie! I mean seriously how mnay of those people ACTUALLY wrote 50,000 words?! I am curious to know. 

But anyway. I did have a really cool idea and I will probably keep working on it and maybe next year during NaNoWriMo I'll finish it for good and win. I'll keep you updated on that.

Clean Bill of Health!!

Today I took Caramel to the vet! This is the first time we've been to the vet together. Now, I've taken my guinea pigs to the vet when they were sick, but I've never taken them for a well visit. So this was kind of a new experience for me.

It went a lot better than expected. I was not sure how Caramel was going to react. She does not like to be handled at all...or well, she only likes it if SHE initiates it and not me. She'll hop into my lap or hop over to be pet...but she does not like to be lifted up out of the air and she won't let me put her in my lap to be pet...she wants to be the one who says when she sits in my lap and when she doesn't.

I got her this cute little fabric carrier and put a garbage bag and towel on my car seat and put a towel and some lettuce in the carrier with her. She seemed to enjoy the car ride. Then we got to the vet and I filled out paperwork and then the vet saw her. She got weighed and her nails were clipped and her ears were cleaned. Then the vet let Caramel run around the office for awhile. Of course we had a hard time picking her back up when it was time to go, but she really enjoyed running around for a bit.

Overall, the vet said she was very healthy, but a little overweight. She said I should let her run around in a bunny proof room instead of restricing her to a small area with a pen. Once in a while she needs to run around...not hop...run. So my mom and I let her out in the hallway. We used a little card table to block her from running into the living room and we used the pen to block the way into the dinning room. Then we closed all of the bedroom doors. She had the whole hallway to just hop around and run around in. And boy can she run! Sometimes she just races up and down the hallway! She goes so fast we can't video it!

The vet said we should also get new food for her. She asked what I use and said she was familiar with the brand and knew that it had a lot of alfalfa in it. She said alfalfa is what contributes to obesity in rabbits and other small animals...also she said it can give her bladder stones which I knew because my brother's guinea pig, Cocoa, had bladder stones one time. I just didn't know her food had alfalfa in it. I didn't even think to read the ingredients. So I bought her pellets that were made with timothy hay instead. At first she was a little disappointed because it did not have all the extra stuff she likes like seeds and stuff. But she does like it. And we kept the other food and give it to her as a treat once in a while.

And finally, the vet said she was in heat. She strongly suggested that I consider spaying Caramel. She said that bunnies live longer, healthier lives when they are fixed. Also, female bunnies are prone to getting uterine cancer later in life if they are not spayed. So spaying it is. She goes to have her surgery sometime in January so that she is better able to handle the anesthesia.

So that was our adventure together at the vet. It went well! And I seem to be doing most things correctly!

:-D

Wow...It's Been A While...

So I finally found a pet store that sells rabbits. I got a brown Holland Lop. She will grow to be about 4 or 5 pounds so she won't be very big. Piccolo, the mini lop I was looking to adopt, was 7 pounds. They bred Mini lops and dwarf rabbits to get Holland Lops...that's why they are smaller. I'm not sure what she weights now, but it can't be much more than 3 or 4 pounds so she's probaly as big as she is going to get.

So, after much debate, we finally named her Caramel. She is approximately 3 or 3 1/2 months old. She is still a baby so she is very destructive. She chews on EVERYTHING and she loves to dig (even though most things she digs at do not move when she digs at them). She also loves to move her litter box around the cage which causes her to accidently dump it all over her bedding....she's actually doing it right now as I'm typing this.

It was a bit rough in the beginning. She was from a breeder but I guess she had been at the pet store isolated for a while and didn't interact much with humans. So she was really skiddish when we first brought her home. But I left her in her cage for abour 36 hours without taking her out. I put my hand in to pet her and stuff and she got used to me that way. Then, little by little I'd let her run around for a while out of her cage.

Now, the first time I let her out I thought I had everything thought out. I moved everything she could chew on and I got her a ball to push around with her nose. I read that instead of reaching in to grab her, I should open the door and let her come out on her own terms. She came out and pushed the ball for a little. Then, a teeny tiny spider crawled over my mom's leg...she screamed and Caramel darted underneath my brother's bed! It took us a half hour to get her back into her cage. She kept running around the room hiding behind stuff. I am not sure if she was actually frightened or if she thought we were playing.

But I bought her a pen so she doesn't escape again and she and I sit in the pen and watch tv together. She runs around and chews up the blanket we put in there for her. I also got her a stuffed bear that she throws around and tries to tear apart. I got her this ball of grass and she LOVES it and grunts at me whenever I touch it. She lets me pet her now and even comes up to the cage door to greet me when I reach in to change her food and litter. She even jumped into my lap of her own accord the other day. So it took a lot of work but she is definitely warming up to people.

I am hoping that with some more work I can one day begin training her to be a therapy animal. I think it'd be a lot of fun to take her to nursing homes and let the residents sit with her and pet her. Many times, elderly patients cannot bend down to pet dogs or cats, but a bunny would be perfect for them. They can hold on to them and pet them and they don't have to worry about bending over which could be painful for them. But, Caramel is definitely not ready for that. She is not comfortable being grabbed and she would rather chew on things and run around and play instead of sit and be pet. But she is still young yet, so once she matures she'll be more able to do that. Even if she could do that now, she is too young to be spayed and all therapy animals need to be fixed regardless of what kind of animal they are.

Anyway, so that's really all that is new with me. Caramel and I have been spending lots of time playing. I've been working long hours at the nursing home as well so between working 8 to 12 hour days and spending time with my bunny, I haven't really had much time to blog about her yet......or even about the Steelers game I went to see last weekend. Which, Caramel was not happy about....my going away to see the steelers meant I went away and left her for my mother to care for which I don't think my mother is well liked yet. And also my mom was not comfortable letting Caramel run around and play so she was cooped up in her cage all weekend. But the game was a ton of fun even though the Steelers lost. :-(

And things with Mike are going well...I mean apart from the distance thing. Mike went with me to the game and we stayed in a hotel. We went to a fencing tournament the day before the game and we both did not do as well as we hoped. But I think we learned a lot and know what to work on now. We downloaded skype and we've been staying in contact through our webcams. I am thankful we can do that cuz I can see him and hear him.....but sometimes I hear about how bad his day was or how much work he has to do or how painful his toothache is and I wish I could hug him though the webcam too. I need a stargate.

There's Caramel. :-D

Bunny Update

So yeah this bunny thing was so much harder than I thought it would be.

Like I said: I found a rabbit I'm sort of interested in. She's very cute. But the animal shelter that has her is an hour and a half away from where I live. When I emailed them for more information about other places to find mini lops they said: You shouldn't choose a rabbit by its breed, you should choose a rabbit by it's personality and how it blends with your household. Are you serious?! Basically I need to meet the rabbit before I can adopt it. So I need to travel an hour and a half away TWICE. Once to meet the damn thing and once to pick it up to take it home. And it'll take two weeks to be approved and process the paperwork. It'll probably be a month before I actually get a rabbit. HOWEVER....I pay $75 for the rabbit, a membership to the House Rabbit Society of America and a book about caring for rabbits AND it's already spayed/neutered. Good deal. But it's so far away.

So I've been furiously searching for breeders just so I can compare pricing information. I found one that has the kind of rabbit I want BUT they won't sell to me because they don't sell rabbits as pets. In order to buy from them I have to be intending to either show or breed my rabbit. They won't even give me any info or anything so I don't know where they are located. If I knew that then maybe I'd just tell them I was gonna show it. What are they gonna do if I don't? Take it back from me? They can't repossess a rabbit, right?

The other breeder I found seems like a nice lady. I have no idea what she has because her site is not updated. She was not really specific about where she is located, but from what I do know I know she is about two hours away. So I'll pay less for the rabbit, travel about the same ammount, I'll probably only have to go there once though BUT I'll have to pay to have it nuetered/spayed. Not sure about the quality of the breeder though because her website is one of those geo-shities sites which suggests it may not be the most reputable.

That's it. Two breeders. The petco by me doesn't sell abbits. There was a pet store by me that had rabbits...not the kind I wanted though....but I wouldn't buy animals from it...I don't think it's very reputable (for those of you who know the area...Q Mart is all I'm saying). The little ma and pop pet store by me doesn't advocate buying from breeders so they won't give me any breeder information. The animal shelter, obviously, doesn't advocate buying from breeders either so they won't give me any information either. They say it's because breeders cause over population. I really wanted to ask: Where would you get your rabbits if all the breeders shut down? There'd be no pets to abandon and it'd put you out of business. Real smart.

So.....maybe I'll need to just get another guinea pig....though I think my quest for a guinea pig would be just as trying unless I buy it from a pet store but people always say don't do that.....so I have no idea where to go from here....

Decisions....decisions....

I am in the process of getting myself a rabbit. I have been researching furiously for days now and the more research I do, the more excited I get. At the moment, though, I have quite a dilemma about this.

First of all, I have no idea where I will put it. Rabbits, from what I read, seem to be extremely shy, anxious, and withdrawn. The best way to help them adjust better to your home is to let them have their own space (i.e. "cage") somewhere in a central location in the house that gets a lot of traffic. This will help them adjust better to you and your family and will help them to be more outgoing. So I guess the best place would be in the dinning room or living room or even the kitchen. I just am worried about putting it in the dinning room where the backyard animals (such as the hawk we have in the back) can see her. She wouldn't understand that there is glass between her and the hawk (or other predator). I don't want her to be frightened by a hawk or escaped dog running up to the sliding glass door to investigate. Rabbits can get so frightened that they could have a heart attack and die!!

I also have a dilemma about where I should get one. I am dying for a black and white mini lop. They are absolutely adorable. But I found this really cute bunny up for adoption. Her name is Piccolo and she IS a mini lop, but she's not black and white, she's tan. So, should I compromise what I've always wanted and do a good deed by adopting or buy a black and white mini lop from a breeder? The good thing about adopting, aside from doing a good deed, is that the animals are already spayed and neutered so I won't have to worry about getting that done. But Piccolo is two years old already and I've missed watching her grow up! But I have no idea where to find breeders that sell rabbits...not that I have any better idea where this animal shelter is that has Piccolo. *sigh* Guess I have some more thinking to do.....

This is Piccolo: 

On a Happier Note....

Anyway, so that my blog isn't so depressing, I just thought I'd publish some happier news.

Today is my betta fish, Benjamin's, birthday. I mean, of course, he's a fish so I actually have no idea when his birthday is, but today is the anniversary of the day that I brought him and his friend Walter home from Walmart. At the time, I was going through a horrible break up and to fill the void left by my idiot exboyfriend, I bought myself some fish. It actually helped.

I was surprised at how much I ended up liking my betta fish. I had never had betta fish before. But they are really neat fish. I had always had gold fish or tropical fish as a kid. But bettas are different. I feel like they might be smarter than other fish. They react to people when they walk into the room. It almost seems like Benjamin "greets" me when I come home from a long day. He swims right up to the corner of the tank and puts his nose against it like he's saying hi!! It's cute.

Benjamin is the blue one. Walter is the red one.

But bettas are also very lazy. Once in a while he'll just stop swimming and take a nap. No seriously. He just floats there at the bottom of the tank or in his favorite corner. And I'll seriously walk up to the tank and go, "NO! You can't be dead!" So I'll shake his tank and he'll swim around and flare his gills at me for waking him up! I can't tell you how many times I thought he was dead.

But a dead betta isn't hard to miss. They grow white bacteria all over them just hours after they die. Walter only lived until December. I found him one morning like that. It was sad. I put him in the toilet and waited like fifteen minutes hoping he'd move. I do not deal with death very well. Also, that same bacteria grows on bettas if their tank is too dirty and then it kills them. Twice now, that's happened to Benjamin, but I cleaned his tank and he was all better!! He is a gorgeous blue color and you can tell when he's healthy and happy because his scales are very dark blue and he blows bubbles at the top of the water.  :-D

Anyway, here's to our happy year together, Benjamin and here's hoping for more! <3