|
|
|
Well, to be honest I don't have much to say. I logged in to say ... if you come to read my journal and unsurprisingly find it unupdated, try checking out this chaps journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/uberjeep/
I'm tired. Ian's in a mood with me, and I dunno why. Sophie is getting much better after her operation .. which I probably haven't posted about at all so you don't know what I'm talking about. Ian's going away for the entire week this week; no doubt he'll be just as irritable when he gets back next weekend, so that'll just place the icing on the week AGAIN.
And yeah .. I feel pretty cack!
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Tuesday, April 19th, 2005
|
|
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
|
|
|
I so love spending time with my ratties. I sometimes go into the ratroom and find Jack sitting in the door ... I thought the first few times that he was sitting there waiting for me, but have now sussed out that he sits there waiting for me to open the door so that he can rush out, and start playing the game where I go collect him and throw him back into the rat-room then he does it all again ... trying to shut the ratroom door without having to push a rat head away is pretty rare!
Today, I went in to find Holliy perched on the side of the litter tray (next to the door), looking as if she was waiting for me .. but she didn't try and dash out the door. She really is the cutest. She's about two thirds the size of a normal female rat, but as with all undersized ratties she's got the spunkiness of a dozen put together. I walked in there the other day (nekkid heheh), and she climbed up my bare legs, up my front, all the way to my head and sat there feeling like the queen lol. Her sister tried to follow suit but obvioulsy there wasn't room on my head for both of them.
Dusty has turned into the love of my life again. When we first got him he was a complete delight, but although he remained friendly, he kind of became a rats rat for most of last year. The last few days though, he's been very keen to jump on my lap and have a shoulder massage, a little grooming and general chin rub. Bless. I'm sure his eyes nearly fell out from bruxing today.
When I was cuddling Dusty yesterday Samson and Ted were out on the rampage. The four youngsters are as bonkers as their Dad (Jack) .. they run all over the place, backwards and forwards, round in circles .. very very fast. Sam and Ted decided to both pounce on Dusty (poor baby) and bring him into their play. He clobbered them both round the ears and as the two youngsters rolled away in a ball of squeaking fun, he nuzzled his way back into my lap lol. I'm soooo in love. You know, I'm sure I fall in love with these critters more and more every day. *sigh*.
The piggies and bunny seem to be cheering up more too at the moment. I've had kisses from both Keith and Steve (piggies), Keith keeps talking to me every time I go in there (he usually growls), and even Widget (bunny) let me pet him without pretending I was an evil monster out to eat him. Hmmmm .. maybe they sense spring coming!?!?!?
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Sunday, January 16th, 2005
|
|
|
I'm looking forward to when they invent teleportation. I was considering that it'd be fantastic when they can at last just teleport your period out of you instead of having to go through this evil torture every blooming week.
Ian pointed out that it'd be very useful for teleporting evil nasty cancer cells out of people .... trust him to steel my thunder!
Knowing my luck I'll be reincarnated as a man (nb, no periods) by the time teleportation is invented anyway.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Friday, January 14th, 2005
|
|
|
Woah. I can now watch my cable TV on my computer :D Woooohooooo. So much for the stupid person at PCWorld 'Oh, you'll have to contact NTL to do that!' duh. Idiot. If anyone does actually need to know how you do it, you need to get:
- a video capture card
- a digi sender (sender receiver)
- specific cables
Basically what you do is plug one end of the sender receiver into the NTL box (or the like) and the other end into the video capture card.
When buying the digi sender you have to be particularly careful, as a lot of them are not compatible with NTL or other broadband providers. The one we have bought is here: http://www.digisender.net/_Europes_No1_Video_Sender_Company.html (you can buy it from Argos). If you use other wireless hardware you need to check that they don't broadcast at 2.4GHz.
The cables you need then are:
- converting cable from left and right phono to stereo jack input, to go from the receiver to the sound card
- phono to phono to connect from the receiver to the video capture card
- if you get the right sender-receiver it will come with a scart throughput cable, enabling you to plug the NTL box into the TV/video at the same time as connecting it to the transmitter (so you don't have to keep changing it when you use the transmitter, and you don't need the TV on to use the transmitter).
There I hope that's helpful. At the moment Ian has his laptop on and is using the wi-fi card which broadcasts at 2.4GHz (to the wireless router), so I need to wait for him to finish working in order to enjoy my new toy. I can see the picture ok, and I can hear the sound, but there is definite interference .. and it's making me dizzy heheheheh. I'll be patient ;)
Hmmmm ... I'm pretty sure there was something else I wanted to 'wooohooo' about, but I can't remember what it was. There's something I need to 'uh-oh' about though.
At 5:30 this morning I was woken up by a strange bang; it sounded kind of like something plastic falling over in the rat room. I wondered what it was for a bit, and then went back to sleep (they're always doing nutty things). This morning when I woke up properly I could hear lots of scampering ... and it didn't sound like the usual scampering of Jack chasing Steve (the guinea pig) around in morning high spirits .. it sounded like the scampering of ratties chasing ratties, pausing then running some more. Not good. I suddenly knew what the noise had been at 5:30am ... the girls had pushed open their cage door! The boys were out for a rampage last night, so with the girls cage door openeing it was pretty much a free for all rattie-orgy I imagine. Eeeeeeeek. This means that we could have as many as 3 pregnant ratties ... which in turn means we could have as many as like 30 babies due at the same time .. aaaaaaaaargh.
Ok. Sophie only had four babies in her litter; hopefully if she has another litter it'll be just as small. Holliy is tiny weeney so hopefully if she has a litter it'll be tiny weeney too; in fact because she's so small we'll have to keep a very vigilant eye on her coz her being pregnant could be very precarious. Autumn is nearly normal sized (she's not finished growing yet), so she could have a normal litter I guess. If we're lucky though, none of the girlies would have been in season, and no-one will be pregnant. *sigh*. I don't want them to be pregnant coz there's no way we can keep all the babies .. and the thought of giving any away after I've fallen head over heals in love with them is a nightmare :(
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Friday, January 7th, 2005
|
|
|
This is a back dated entry, as I've not really been able to cope with what mother said to me. I'm just going to copy straight from an email I sent a friend, as if I retype the entire thing, I'll probably start crying again .. or stressing out anyway. She's a stupid woman!
* * *
My sister and I grew up with my Dad, coz my Mum was/is schizophrenic. I'm not completely convinced that she is schizophrenic, I beleive that she is either dyslexic or dyspraxic, extremely paranoid, but chooses the rest of her stupid behaviour. Anyway. For the last 20 years she's had a boyfriend/partner named Mike. He and I get on quite well, though we've had our differences in the past. He basically looks after her; if he wasn't around she would eat biscuits all day, be drunk all day, probably start smoking again. She can't cook. She doesn't wash up. She doesn't do laundry. And she has absolutely no sense of money. The other day she chucked her job in. I'm releived about that to be honest, coz she's a nurse, and one of these days she'd probably kill someone.
Well, when I was 15 she sent me a letter 'explaining why she wasn't allowed to care for me and my sister'. She told me in it that as a baby she had sexually abused me, amongst other things. Can you imagine having to come to terms with a peice of information like that? I was in the middle of my important exams (GCSEs) so they all got completely screwed up. I was brave; I forgave her. A lot of people wouldn't have done that. I never told my parents (Dad and step-Mum) or my family about it, but have told a few friends through the years.
Then when I was 18 and just about to start university, she attempted to commit suicide and blamed me. Long story short; I was talking to her on the phone while cooking dinner for the family (not her) .. the frying pan started to slip off the hob so I told her I had to go and we ended the phonecall amicably. The next thing I knew was Mike was on the phone yelling at me for putting the phone down on her, which I hadn't done; so I put the phone down on him. He rang straight back but I didn't pick it up, so my sister did, and it was then that he told her that my stupid mother had made a suicide attempt because I put the phone down on her *sigh*. ... Can you imagine having to live with an accusation like that? That ruined my first year of university anyway, and I've been treading broken-glass every single time I speak to her since .. putting up with every stupidity that she throws at me.
There are other things. I can't remember them off hand. There are about ten little things every week. She's always accusing me of not telling her anything about my life; when I tell her everything, coz of the fear that she'd commit suicide if I didn't answer any of her questions (she asked me how big Ians willy is a couple of weeks ago). She accuses me and my sister of collaborating with her sister Gill (who is completely off her trolley as well), and her brother Peter (who is an evil fraudster) .. I'm not entirely sure what we're supposed to have been collaborating about. If I say something that she doesn't like then obviously Gill, Peter, or even Mike told me to say it. Mike, who has been by her side for 20 years, making sure she doesn't end up back down sh*t-creak (which is where he found her), keeps getting accused of all sorts of crap. She is sooo of her trolley that she wound Mike up to the point that he actually hit her last summer. He hit her once. Most of the time he takes out his anger on house-hold appliances ... he hates irons!!! And the other day her shook her. Now, I can understand her being scared, coz Mike gets very wound up, and he's stronger than her, but no way is he a serial abuser. So what did she do yesterday? She went and reported him to the police. For goodness sake .. there's no way he's going to put up with her now ... he's really really upset about it though. And I don't blame him. He had a call from the police earlier today saying that he had to go to a nearby town on Friday so that they can arrest him.
Yesterday afternoon she phoned me up. To be honest I can't remember if she actually told me that she'd reported Mike to the police .. he'd already phoned and told me that himself. Well she was being arsey and I can't remember how it all happened but I was trying to be reasonable with her. She told me that my sister had gone completely mad .. I asked her why, and she said it was because she (mother) had phoned her (Cher)(at work) and Cher had told her to go away and leave her alone ... obviously mad you see! So I told her that Cher isn't mad .. she didn't like me saying that. I told her that she always reads too much into things ... so she told me that just coz Mike says that doesn't mean that it's true. I told her that it was nothing to do with Mike, that I can think for myself, and create my own opinions etc. She told me that I don't take her seriously, to which I told her I do .. she kept telling me I was laughing at her when I wasn't. At some point I told her that she has to stop playing games with people. She told me that she doesn't play games with people; again, just coz Mike says it, it doesn't mean it's true. I said it's nothing to do with Mike, I can see it for myself, and she's done it to me on various occasions. She flew off the handle 'What? What ... What have I done to you?' .... so I re-iterated the incident of her attempting suicide.
I had done this a few weeks ago too, and she had laughed saying 'Oh, I'd forgotten about that!'. She had thought it was funny. The other thing about the whole thing is that she's a nurse; so if she wanted to commit suicide she'd know very well how to do it properly .. as such, we can assume that she did it for attention .. just like she does everything for attention. (Basically she wants people to like her, but she goes about it all completely the wrong way).
She out right denied it. At first she assumed that it was a story that Mike had told me, but I told her that it wasn't, it was an experience that happened to me and has shaped my life ever since, that she did to me. That my sister could back me up as she heard it all first hand (although later speaking to my sister, I found that she appears to have mostly blocked it out). My Mum kept telling me over and over that it wasn't true ... so I asked her why I would lie about it, to which she said she wouldn't accuse me of lying, but someone had obviously made up the story *sigh*. I could practically hear her brain ticking on the end of the phone trying to work out how this story could have been invented ... perhaps she has honestly forgotten it .. again.
Anyway. I then reminded her of the letter she wrote when I was 15. She remembered that alright. I asked her why she wrote it; apparantly I needed to know those things. I told her that I understood that it made her feel better at the time, but that telling someone something they have no incling of before hand, isn't good for them. No I didn't need to know. She then told me that she hadn't actually sexually abused me. That she had bitten me; not hard .. you know the loving bite mothers give their children (and I give my ratties); she did that. That is what she meant by sexual abuse. I asked her why she didn't write that in the letter, instead of what she actually wrote, and she told me that she wrote that I had been sexually abused because she knew it would get attention and she wanted to flush out from behind the scenes whoever was steering her life into the crap.
So for the last 12 years I've beleived a complete lie. Not only that ... but she actually lied about something so atrocious for completely selfish reasons. F*cking screwed up selfish reasons too; powered by complete paranoia and stupidity. And you know what.... her only comment was 'Well it backfired didn't it!', meaning that whoever is behind the scenes of her life is still there now. She can't beleive that she is the one screwing up her own life. Well I've had it. I don't want anything to with someone who could do that to me.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Sunday, December 12th, 2004
|
|
|
Hi there dear Diary and loyal readers (of which I imagine I have none),
Thought I'd better make the effort to write something since I keep intending to keep this thing up to date. I'm not entirely sure what I last wrote, but have a suspicion I may not have written about my evil nasty skin condition. And for once, when I describe something as evil and nasty, this could possibly be considered an understatement!
See, what happened is this: a few weeks ago .. probably about eight weeks I guess, I woke up and noticed three small blisters on my right index finger. They looked like small warts to me, and I hate warts, and didn't want them to grow or spread or anything, so I came in here and with a needle tried to pick them off ... yeah I know I'm gross .. except that they burst like a blister does and some clear liquid came out. Didn't think anything of it after that ... except when two days later three more of them came up on the same finger; in a slightly different place. I did the same thing; burst them. Every other day for just over a week they came up .. it started to make my finger look like a miniature war zone, so I went to the chemist to see what they thought. They couldn't really help, though the pharmacist did say that a few people had been in with something similar recently.
My doctor was away, so I didn't go and see him for a bit. By the time he got back, it had spread all over my finger. And it was pretty damned painful too. He gave me a topical steroid and some penicillin .. a ten day course. Well they didn't seem to help much; a blobby eczema like rash started to spread over my hand. Then one morning I woke up and this rash had spread all the way up my arm overnight. Eeeek. So I went back to the doctor using an 'emergency' appointment .. the receptionist said it sounded like an emergency, however the doctor just dismissed me with some pills to help the itching .. which is not why I went to him *sigh*. Ho hum.
So I finished the course of antibiotics, and it hadn't improved at all .. in fact I now have the rash over my entire body! I made another appointment on Friday; I was given an appointment with a different doctor (the one who fitted my coil) .. he looked at my rash, tutted quite a lot, and completely changed my medication. I wanted to hug him and kiss him just for taking me seriously!!! He's put me on a different topical steroid with an antibiotic incorporated in the cream, and a different oral antibiotic too ... I *think* they might actually be working too. I'd been avoiding using the computer all week coz my finger was too sore to use for typing, but as you can see now it isn't hurting so much anymore :)
I do have a picture of me covered in rash; not sure if I can insert pictures into my diary though (even though Alistair Appleton can in his .. imagine he paid for his though). If I work out how to I'll insert it at some point.
I have period pain. It hurts. I'm not impressed!
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Saturday, December 4th, 2004
|
|
|
Sadly Booboo passed away this morning. I went into the ratroom to see if she wanted any water to find her in her hanging basket having a strange turn of some kind; she was strethcing her neck forward as if retching .. quite scary. I picked her up and cuddled her in bed, while she had a fit. I think her heart stopped, but she kept breathing, and then her breathing stopped a minute or so later. My poor baby has said her last *night night*
Love you Booboo.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Tuesday, November 30th, 2004
|
|
|
I just got in the shower with my glasses on; how dumb is that???
Right, the coil story. I think it's important to tell this, coz when I was looking for information online I didn't find any personal experiences and stuff. Blimey my glasses are misting up now .. dammit .. scuse spelling coz I can't see!
The coil, internal uterine device (IUD), call it what you will. After talking to my doctor a while ago Ian and I decided to opt for the coil. The pill seems to drive my libido away, which is bad as far as Ian is concerned, and I hate condoms! The coil is supposed to be the next best option; it sits in your womb scaring sperm and eggs away from each other. Actually, apparantly the copper in it harms the sperm, plus the womb won't let anything implant in the lining while there is an 'alien object' inside the womb! Fair does. You have to have the coil fitted while you have your period though, so that the doctor fitting it can be certain you're not pregnant, as otherwise he/she could be accused of inadvertently aborting a baby.
My periods are so damned irregular that when it eventually arrived I HAD to have it fitted. It just so happened that my doctor was actually on holiday. His partner therefore stood in for him. I walked into the room and sat on the couch where the 'operation' was to take place, and next to me on trolley tray were some very scary looking metal contraptions; they pretty much looked like torture tools.
When the doctor came in he told me to relax, which was easy enough .. I'm pretty practised at relaxing. Then he rammed this huge metal tube up inside me without any warning .. and told me to relax again. It completely took my breath away; the nurse standing with me was trying desperatly not to look at me. Holding my breath I managed to relax again. Then the doctor picked up this extremely long handled pair of .. for lack of a better word .. scissors. Except they weren't scissors; scissors don't have evil pointy teeth on the end of them! He told me it would be ok, and I wouldn't feel a thing .. these pointy teeth were to embed in my cervix, where apparantly we women have no feeling at all, and hold it apart so that he could put the coil within my womb.
Well, I can tell you .. not all women have no feeling in their cervix!!! I have NEVER in my life felt so much pain. And this is from someone who has to take anti-inflammatories for period pain! (Admittedly I've never broken a bone or anything, so I only have period pain to compare with really). I screamed! And said 'ow' quite a lot. The doctor said 'You shouldn't be able to feel anything!' .. well sorry Mr Dr but I could feel a lot! It hurt all the way from my boobies down to my toes, with a huge epicentre of pain in my stomach (presumably where he was sticking bits of metal in me).
He took the pointy teeth scissors out looking pretty annoyed, and used a pair of blunt ones instead. Even the blunt ones hurt a bit, though that could simply be because they were aggravating where the pointy teeth had been stuck in. I don't remember what it felt like when he placed the coil inside .. I probably whinged about something ... but the cervix was the main pain! The nurse had me sit on the bed for ten minutes .. until some colour had returned to my face (apparantly). The pain seemed to subside a bit, so I decided to go home. I had to pop into the bakers on the way .. where I nearly fainted. Very embarassing.
Once at home, the pain returned, with a vengeance. Gawd ... the pain I felt that week was unbeleivable .. it was like having the biggest ever period pain you can imagine .. I was creased up on the floor for half hours at a time; I decided that when the pain started coming I should go and lie down (go to sleep) so that I could avoid it. This was three weeks ago, and I'm still getting slight pains now, but not much.
The day after the IUD was implanted a row of bruises appeared on my thigh. It looked for all the world like finger prints. A week later another row appeared a bit further down. I can only assume that these are where the doctor had to hold my legs apart when I was whinging and stuff or something ... from the size of the bruises you would expect them to have hurt when they happened .. which I guess just shows how much pain I was in elsewhere!
Anyway. A week after the IUD was implanted, I had to go back and see the nurse for a check (they check that the string is hanging down the vagina). She got out a clear plastic ice cream shaped thing, and placed that inside me ... it had a winch on it which could then open the far end so that she could see what was going down on there ... much much much MUCH better than having a huge metal thing rammed inside me.
My advice to anyone having the IUD implanted, who hasn't had children, is firstly, to make sure that your doctor is using one of the things with a winch instead of a massive metal one, and secondly, to ask them to gently test whether you do actually have feeling in your cervix before imbedding evil metal teeth in you.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Monday, November 29th, 2004
|
|
|
I really should try and keep this thing up to date. Even if it's only to do a daily update on the ratties .. and the state of my finger.
Firstly, Sophie had baby ratties by Jack on October 26th (which I beleive is Samantha Collins' birthday). She had four beautiful babies, all of whom we're keeping. Two boys; Samson and Ted, and two girls; Holliy and Autumn. Ian is completely smitten with them; it's lovely to see. Today we reached the complicated landmark of having to start seperating the boys and girls. We're going to keep the boys in a seperate cage with Jack until they're old enough to be doctored. They were sooooo happy to come out this evening and play with their sisters lol .. it's going to be hard and sad to seperate them properly in a few days time. Ho hum.
I wonder if you can get a rattie equivalent for the pill that we could give to teh girls until the boys can be castrated.
And if they'd be relied up on to take it lol.
Aaaanyway. I have an infection on my finger. It started off a few weeks ago with three tiny blisters .. since then it has got worse and worse until now I can barely move my finger coz it's so sore. Why haven't I been to the doctor? Coz he's been on holiday for three weeks the git! Actually, I could have gone and seen his partner, but his partner hurt me soooo badly when fitting me with teh coil (another story for another time) that I don't wanna see him.
I was playing with the ratties just now, and it is soooo cute how Dusty was really concerned about my finger and really wanted to nurse it. Bless him. I think he kind of recognises that I nurse his tiny little scabs (he has mites, but I can't treat it with my finger like this at the moment) ... and help releive some of his itching for a while .. so he likes to do the same for me when he can. Even Dougal was trying to lick my finger and take the dead bits of skin off.
Ooo; Dougal has come on in leaps and bounds today. He's always such a complete wuss, but today he let me scoop him up, give him a squish and put him down again .. twice .. with no struggles or anything. I shall have to persist with this line of Dougaling, coz it'll be sooo worth it.
Booboo has thwarted Lians predictions of dying this weekend .. she has in fact perked up a great deal and been practising lots of different cute faces. She's very much enjoynig having her medicine .. although I forgot to give her the Baytril today. I'll try and remember tomorrow.
Right, I'd better go to bed now. Nini.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Thursday, September 23rd, 2004
|
|
|
Oh gimme a break would you. I've been exhausted and depressed all week, following a nackering weekend. I've spent most of the week searching for my bloody passport, but is it in this house? Is it bloody heck! I'm telling you I'm in some parallel universe where the damned thing was never bloody issued. I don't have the energy to walk to the post office, and I certainly don't have the emotional energy to go through all the rigmarol of filling it in, finding a fucking picture .. finding a professional to sign it.
Stuff the fucking holiday.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Saturday, September 11th, 2004
|
|
|
Today has been pleasent; I bet if I ask Ian he will say that he hasn't enjoy today coz he hasn't acheived anything .. or that it wasn't constructive or some such fiddle faddle. But it's been nice. We've spent the day at home, just relaxing and doing stuff. Ian mowed the lawn; front and back, while I rested. We tried to introduce Jack to the ratties again ... he's not doing very well lol .. all the ratties are giving him the benefit of the doubt, being very patient with him .. but he keeps biting their bums, or humping them. Dougal was walking around with this tiny little upstart attached to his behind earlier; it was kind of amusing lol.
I've spent the day trying to find ways to get more people to join my contests. I've joined some webrings, and joined some forums ... I've yet to figure out quite how these forum thingies work. As for webrings .. eeeeek; even worse lol. Hopefully I'll get some more entries though. I have yet to place my Aromatherapy contest on the calendars actually; it's not that one that's concerning me anyway!
Most things are ok. Had a phonecall yesterday from Daddy to say that Auntie is in hospital. That's not good. I so want to go and give her a hug :( By the sound of it I think she fell out of bed. Poor Auntie.
Had a phone call the day before yesterday from mother ... she was trying to convince me that WearWolves exist *sigh*. I dunno what to do with her lol.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Friday, September 3rd, 2004
|
|
|
I'm annoyed!!!! I have just spent all day in the garden. I dug up the whole of the front flower bed, dug in loads of peat (dunno how to spell that), and replanted everything in better places than they'd been in before. I dug out as many stones as I could, and I got rid of dead bits of plants and dead plants ... and deslugged lots of bulbs. I didn't know that slugs lived underground and ate my bulbs :(
Well, I'm really pleased with my work ... but Ian on coming home, makes a face at it and wonders off back into the house. He doesn't come back out for about ten minutes, and then he has his stupid helli copter with him. I ask him why he made a face at the garden and he says 'It just isn't what I was expecting'. When I asked him what he was expecting he said he didn't know. On pushing him all he could see was the bit of clearing up that still needed doing on the pathway ... which I have now done actually. He could at least show that he recognises that I've worked really really hard today. I'm really upset, and all he can do is play with his sodding helli-copter.
And he won't let me have free rats either :(
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Thursday, September 2nd, 2004
|
|
|
Wow; can you beleive it's been like five months or something since I last updated. Actually; I thought it had been much longer than that, and wasn't planning on updating anymore .. however when I just took a look and found that it was only April I thought I'd keep it up afterall.
There's so much that has happened since April, but so little of that that seems of major significance, that I can't be bothered to update properly. I'm having a good day! I had a good day yesterday. I had acupuncture on Tuesday, and am wondering if that is the reason.
The weather is fabulous today, and I really want to go out in the garden and dig everything up. Dig everything up? you say ... yep lol. Ians parents have done their garden this year, and it looks GORGEOUS, so I suddenly want to work on ours again. The problem is that our soil is so clay-like that I need to re-condition it before I can work the garden properly. Plus, by digging everything up I can reposition stuff properly, plus get all the stones out of the soil. I want to cover the garden in stones, allowing spaces where I want the plants to grow and stuff; I think it'll look gorgeous. Plus hopefully it'd make it easier to get rid of weeds; and we wouldn't be able to see the weird moss growing all over the soil like it does!
Apart from that, I've not much to say .. today :)
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Thursday, April 1st, 2004
|
| Time: | 1:18 pm. |
| Mood: | miserable. |
|
|
Once again I'm here to announce the parting of another darling rattie; Snowy. She left us on Tuesday; two days ago I know, but yesterday I was too beside myself to do anything. I don't feel particularly rapt today either. I feel guilty. I don't think there was anything more I could have done to help the wee mite, but I wish that there was. I wish there was a magical rattie cure-all. I can't understand how people can be afraid, some even loathe ratties .. they're such fragile little beings, that only live such short lives, but have personalities as huge as ours. Such a short life seems such a huge waste. And Snowy was only a year old; she'd only been with us for six months. Those six months have been fantastic; she's been one of the bestest ratties ever. You don't often get cuddly female ratties, but she was one. And I'm going to miss her so much. Night night Snowy darling. Rest in peace xxx
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
|
Sunday, February 29th, 2004
|
|
|
Sandy gone byebye :(
Last night Sandy was happy to take quite a few chocolate drops from us ... until we tried to put some Baytril on one; I ended up with it all over my hand, and had to give the chocolate drop to Sophie in the end. I feel bad that over the past few days, while Sandy has been so ill I've neglected Sophie and Dusty, who have been dying to jump all over me.
When I went into the ratroom this morning Sandy was lying with his head resting where the food bowl is, but there was bedding all over the food bowl which he didn't stand a chance of burying through with his paws being so impaired. So I took a peice of chicken and held it for him to eat; he chewed about a quarter of it and gave up. So I went downstairs to see what I could find that he'd be able to lick from a spoon; he only had about one mouthful of peanut butter though. Poor tired baby.
We called Lian, and she came to the vet surgery for us, and has sent him to rest. He was still fighting, and willing to try to live, but he was too weak to succeed; she agreed that it was the kindest thing to let him go. My poor little baby.
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
|
Friday, February 27th, 2004
|
|
|
Never ... NEVER .. try to take nine rats to the vets all at the same time. I now know what my worst nightmare is; and I've lived through it.
When my alarm woke me at 9:00 this morning, I told it to go away, but it wouldn't .. which is just frankly rude if you ask me! Sooo, I got up, dressed, and then went into the ratroom with baited breath. I'd got out the cat carrier last night, ready for this mornings ordeal. The first few rats were easy enough to catch and put in there, but as I tried to catch the awkward ones, other rats kept escaping from the carrier when I put the new ones in. Eventually, I had them all in there and had to walk through the snow to the surgery .. with every single step of the way there I was dreading the possiblity that the carrier would give under the weight of the little buggers, and they'd all run in different directions and I'd never see them again.
We made it to the surgery!
I took Sandy out, as he had been turned upside down, either by his disorientedness, or one of the other evil ratties, so I cuddled him whilst waiting to see Nicky (the nurse). I don't know if he was more of a comfort to me than I was to him, but either way we were both pretty chilled out after a little while of stroking. Nicky wore her gloves and smothered icky smelling bug-killing-juice over my ratties one by one .. it was hard to keep count of who had been done and who hadn't, but we're pretty confident that we got everyone. Sandy was the most loused; so it was mega important to do him.
It was funny to open the carrier and see this massive rat pile. It was exactly the picture that they put in films; some peoples nightmares lol ... but I personally love it!
Sandy sat in my fleece on the way home, snug and secure, and once we'd got home he stayed put on a towel smelling of me wrapped in my scalf on the settee while I sorted out the ratroom. Fortunatly I didn't have to quite all the scrubbing that I originally thought; Jan (receptionsit) suggested I take some bug-killing-spray home with me, so I have done. What a life saver!!! I chucked out everyones bedding, including Widgets (bunny features), sprayed the entire room, and then after a while of cuddling Sandy (letting the spray work and then airing the room) I refurnished the ratroom .. with bedding, features, and rats.
All rats accepted yogurt drops on emerging from the carrier; some more willing than others. I think it's going to take a few days to restore complete trust in me again. Strangely the most willing rat to trust me so far is Dougal; possibly coz since he's been here he's actually been to the vets fairly frequently. Dusty is the most upset by the ordeal. He's been sitting in an empty hanging basket for most of the day; I just went and donated him one of my t-shirts .. he stuck his nose out of it as if to say thank you as I left the room lol :)
Please .. don't let my ratties get lice again.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Thursday, February 26th, 2004
|
|
|
I'm bored. Ian is downstairs watching a boring film from the 80s, and I've got nothing much to do. I'm tired, so I could go to bed, but he'll only wake me up again when he comes back upstairs.
Well, it was a sad weekend. We had to have Miriam put down on Saturday morning. We went out Friday evening with Ians parents to celebrate our anniversary. When we got back we went into the ratroom to pamper and feed everyone as we do every evening. Miriam was looking very unresponsive; she was lying on the shelf in the cage staring. I thought she was dead, so I went to pick her up but she moved a little thus proving she was alive. She turned round and managed to take a yogurt drop from me, but she just lay there and held it in her mouth. She was definitely not a well ratty. She didn't appear to be in any pain though, as usually ratties in pain grind their teeth and stuff. So we left her overnight in the hope that she might get better. I didn't sleep too well; I kept waking up thinking it was morning and time to check on her. I was completely expecting her to pass away in the night.
At 9am I got up to check on her. She had moved up a shelf somehow; she'd obviously been trying to get to the food bowl, coz she had semi knocked it off the side of the cage and was lying underneath it looking pretty dead .. except for her breathing. I picked her up, and she was so cold, that I took her to bed with me while we phoned the vet and waited for teh appointment. We took it in turns to keep her warm while we both got ready to take her to the vets etc; despite being amongst blankets and against warm human bodies she didn't warm up though.
So it was time to go byebye. We saw Michelle (youngest vet) who gave her an injection to put her to sleep. It didn't work. A second injection didn't work either. She hardly reacted at all to the injections, poor thing. Eventually Michelle took her into the other room and gave her a whiff of gas to put her to sleep. Our poor baby.
Saturday evening, Trevors band were playing a gig so we went along to that. It was terrific and I loved it, but I was pretty nackered so we left at about 10:30. When we got home we found Sandy lying on the cage door looking pretty out of it. I picked him up and cuddled him and kept him warm for about twenty minutes I think, til he decided to wonder off. He wondered into the corner of the room where the wall stopped him from wondering any further. He was obviously not very well. I put him back in the cage, where he lay there breathing very heavily; he looked like he felt how I feel when I know with complete certainty that I am going to throw up. Rats however, cannot throw up. My assumption was that he had had another stroke.
He was still with us on Sunday morning, he took a yogurt drop, but he wouldn't take any other food. Tuesday afternoon he wouldn't take any food at all, so I phoned the vets expecting to have Sandy put down. I came home with him though, for which I am eternally thankful. Michelle said that him being more wonky (extra headtilt) is probably to him, like a normal headtilt to someone else .. so he's probably feeling very giddy and nauseous, as anyone would who is walking round in circles etc. So because he's feeling nauseous he's not eating; which is why he's looking and feeling so weak. She gave him a shot of Baytril to help with the nausea and stuff, and a shot of Dex to reduce any inflamation or anything in his brain. He is now eating, and wondering around the ratroom a little more normally, and he seems generally grateful to be alive .. it's fantastic. If I EVER doubt the power of Baytril again .. I dunno .. but I mustn't!!!!
Monday, I took Dougal and Noodle to the vets. Dougal had to have the stitches from his castration out .. which he didn't stay still for so it took absolutely ages. Noodle was looking generally ill, and has been poryphrining for a few weeks, so I took her along to see if Michelle could find anything up with her. She couldn't, but she's put her on a series of a Baytril anyway. She seems to be perking up a bit, but she still has a lot of Porphyrin round one eye.
When I took them in, Jan on reception told me about the post mortem that Michelle had performed on Miriam. Apparantly Miriam didn't have two tumours as we had originally thought, but she had one massive tumour; Jan showed me with her hands what size and shape it was .. it was about the size of a large orange or small grapefruit, but squished and elongated .. basically, so that it'd fit inside a rat! It was attached to her uterus, and she could apparantly see it taking up all of the blood supply. This is why the injections to put Miriam to sleep didn't work, and why she was so cold, and weak. Poor baby :(
Whilst at the vets yesterday with Sandy, I noticed that Sandy had what looked like mini fleas. I remember finding fleas on Fred when I was younger you see. Michelle looked at them and said they look like lice; she took a few and put them on a slide to check. She phoned today, and said that they are definitely lice and they'll all need to be treated. Because we've had all of them playing together a few times recently, it means that all nine of the little buggers need to be treated .. this is going to be one interesting event lol. It is to take place on Friday, and I will try to remember to write about it in here, coz it should definitely be interesting. Widget will need to be treated too, though they can't treat him with the same stuff, so I'm not sure what we're going to do there. I also suspect that I will have to clean all of the cages, and scrub them down, clean all the walls, and floor etc .. throw out our current bags of bedding and hay .. coz we have no idea where the little bugs have come from!!!! This is SOOOO not going to be fun *sigh*
I had an appointment with the ME specialist for the first time yesterday. I predicted before going that I would have the appointment with the wrong person when I got there, and I was right!!! The actual specialist herself is on maternity leave til at least July *sigh* .. however, the lady that I did see did understand ME and she took loads of notes etc about me for the actual specialist. She's also put me on a waiting list to be in an ME group when the specialist person comes back. Hopefully by then I might be better .. we'll see.
Seeing the psychologist and talking over everything that has happened, and my entire life etc, got me kind of emotional; I didn't realise it until yesterday evening though, when I started crying. I can't really remember what started me crying .. hopefully I'd not been mean and nasty to Ian before hand. It's horrible crying and feeling depressed again; it's like having flashbacks to a past life. I feel like the depressed person I used to be is actually a different person to me .. almost like a stranger. And I really really don't want to be like that again. The thought of coming of antidepressants is scary .. but the thought of being on them forever is scary too. Life is flipping scary!!!!
Ian and I have started lent today .. a broad category of 'giving up confectionary' which for Ian includes sausage sarnies!!! It's going to the most difficult month and a half of my entire life .. but at least I'll be able to eat flapjack by the time we go down to Sussex. I just ate an apple, coz we don't have any chocolate or anything in the house .. it's so depressing lol. Ho hum.
Night all xxx
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Wednesday, February 18th, 2004
|
|
|
One of the absolutely fantastic things about living here is how peaceful it is. If anyone ever needed any therapy, living here is simply half of it already. It's lovely to wake up in the morning to hear the birds .. not the cars and sirens I used to hear when I woke up. I love to see the squirrels chasing each other around when I'm downstairs ignoring adverts on tv. It's so much fun to watch all the plants and flowers grow throughout the year too.
I tell you what though, waking up from a nap to hear the boys up the road shouting 'F***' at each other at the top of their lungs is soooo not therapeurtic!
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Monday, February 16th, 2004
|
|
|
Yesterday was fantastic. A real feel good day. I woke up at about 9:48 or 8:48 .. can't remember which thinking it must be midday and that I should get up and make lunch already. Good job I checked the time really lol. Eventually Ian woke up at about half past ten. We lay in bed and chatted for a while, and decided to get engaged. So we're now engaged, and I'm wearing Mummys 21st birthday ring; five saphires and four diamonds as my engagement ring.
We went shopping. We first of all went to our local garden centre, but it looked suspiciously as if they'd been trying to kill everything, so we decided not to buy what we wanted from there. Before we left though I spotted some Magnolias. They cost £25 and were in bud. So I picked one; one that was growing upwards rather than spreading out as the other ones were. I also bought a rock rose. We then went to a couple of other places where we bought some heathers and some hyacinths. We also bought some more lillie bulbs .. not sure why, but Ian seemed to want to, and a mini watering can for my seeds in the utility room.
So I spent the afternoon in the garden. First of all I dragged as much crap off the flower beds as possible; all the leaves from next door .. horrid things. Ian put one dustbin inside the other, and cut a hole so that we can get all the compost out when it's made .. and we put all the crap in there. Homemade compost; excellent! I put the Magnolia in the centre of the rockery, with the rock rose next to it. I put the shrub that had been in the centre over to one side. I planted three of the new heathers in the rockery too, and three in the flower bed. I put the hyacinths near each other so there'll be a lovely blast of colour when they come out. And I've already forgotten where I put the lillies lol.
There is a gorgeous blast of colour out there already; some mini irises have come up. I don't remember planting them; I planted LOADS of stuff last autumn, but they look gorgeous!!! I chopped a branch off our rosemary .. thing .. which has made one side of the rockery look lots clearer lol .. Ian is now trying to dry the rosemary on one of the radiators downstairs; it smells fantastic!
We had loads of budlias (I can never spell that) popping out of various places in our garden, so I have pulled up most of them, but left some of them to grow. The ones that I've pulled up I am cultivating downstairs at the moment. I have a cunning plan to make a hedge of budlia in the front garden; hopefully it'll stop that blooming awful pampus grass (from nextdoor) overtaking our flower beds. At the moment there are a few roses out there and a couple of small rhodedendrons .. I'm gonna move the roses down to one end of the flower bed (they need pruning actually), and then make a nice row of Budlia. It'll be fantastic when they grow and attract lots of butterflies :)
I cooked dinner after that. We had spaghetti bolognese. Scrummy. It gave me some more energy to keep on going which was good. My legs are killing me from all that bending over in the garden yesterday; I want to try and keep it up thouhg so that I can build up some muslces.
I have now planted my sweet pea seeds, and some other seeds in the utility room. I do intend to plant the lupin seeds too, but apparantly they need to be soaked over night, and I keep forgetting to do that. I'm so looking forward to our summer garden of colour :)
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nimnoo's journal
irritated.
exhausted.
Liberal Democrat 25
thoughtful.
ecstatic.
melancholy.
productive.
energetic.