An Idea, And An Award

I've found that lately I have nothing to write about. No ideas, especially not any funny ones. Rabbit drama has been done to death, I think...even though the two large brown rabbits have been traded in (too much work, too old, didn't bond) for an 8 month old black and white lop named Splatter. She already had the name. We thought of a bunch of others (I liked Rorschach myself, but no one else got it), so she's still Splatter. She looks like a white bunny with black splattered on her.

Anyway, the point is, I have nothing to write about. So I thought I'd take an idea from June Gardens and do a "day-in-the-life" post, with pictures. June is taking on this project today, and challenged her readers to do the same. Do yourself a favor, and check out her blog tomorrow, because I'm sure her day will be much more fun than mine. Even if it isn't...her commentary will be hilarious.

I think what I'm going to discover is that my life is pretty boring. But I really have nothing else to do on a Saturday than take pictures of what we're doing. I'm sure there'll be at least one laundry picture. I'm telling you...I'm a fun magnet.

On a completely different note, Lori at The Peterson Family gave me an award, which was so sweet of her:

Thanks, Lori! Please check out her blog...she has some amazing pictures of from The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in a recent post.

And tune in tomorrow, for a day in my life...with pictures. Woohoo.

Senior

I've always taken a picture of the kids on their first day of school. It's like a tradition. It's sad fun to see how they've changed over the years.

Here's Danni on her first day of 8th grade, 2005.

Today is the first day of her senior year. And I'm not there to take a picture today. But she was here visiting last week, which is when I took this picture. So I figured that was close enough. I will refer to this as her first day of school pic, senior year. Even though it was on Saturday.

Of course, Kylie had to get in on the action. Even though her first day of school isn't for another month. God help me.

When Danni started 7th grade, my mother said,

"I remember when you started 7th grade. I turned around, and you were graduating from high school. It goes that fast."

You know what? She was right.

Spongebob Lego Pants

Does anyone want to buy a 14 year-old with an attitude? I'm selling her cheap. I've heard rumors that she's nice to people that aren't me. She'll even clean when she's in the mood (read: bored.) But she's unreasonable, ungrateful, and just a general pain in the ass. She's cute though. And as I mentioned, I've heard she's nice to people not named Me. Takers? Anyone?

Yesterday we went shopping. Kylie needed a new backpack and lunchbox for school, which doesn't start for another month, and the two older girls needed wanted some clothes. I gave each of them a set amount of money to spend and sent them off.

Meanwhile, Kylie and I visited Payless for some shoes, then the Lego store.

Spongebob made of Legos! Kylie is 44" tall, so that gives you an idea of how big Spongebob was. They are having a contest where you guess how many Legos it took to build this thing. I have no idea what the prize is, but I thought it would be fun to guess anyway.

I counted the number of Legos in one row across the front of his head, across the side of his head, the from the top of the head down to the bottom of the shorts. LxWxH, right? Did the math on the back of the entry form. Then Kylie mentioned the legs. Crap! So I added some more...and I wrote down 42,168. Think I'll win?

As for the clothes, neither one of them found anything they liked, but at least Danni tried stuff on. The other one just stood around, rolled her eyes and gave me death glares when I dared make a suggestion. For example, she likes skinny jeans. Wet Seal had some skinny jeans for $10. But they "looked weird." Eyeroll. Even though they're the same kind of jeans she always wears. Is there some sort of unwritten rule that if it's on sale, they will automatically turn their noses up at it, no matter what it is? I took the money back from her when we got home. Little shit. I mean, don't you want her for your very own?

New Rabbits, And A Visitor!

Was my post about our baby bunny a little over-the-top, a little emotional, a little...hormonal, maybe? Well, I was upset at the time, and...well, you know.

On the rabbit front, we've adopted a pair from the Humane Society. These two were dropped off because of a divorce, and they are "coupled." As in, they've been together for most of their lives, they like each other, and they snuggle together and it's kinda cute. Oh, and they are also "fixed," so we won't be having any baby bunnies. The Humane Society won't adopt them out unless they are spayed or neutered.

I wanted to come up with names of famous couples, like Fred and Ginger, Ralph and Alice, Lucy and Ricky, Brad and Angelina. Ok, not really Brad and Angelina. I even suggested Max and Ruby, even though I can't stand that show. But it is about two rabbits, even if they are brother and sister. At one point, I wanted Daisy and Cooter. You know, to go with Bo and Luke, the dogs.

In the end, Shannon decided she was going to let two of her friends back home name the rabbits.




Her friend, Jesus (as in Hey-sus, not Christ), named the male rabbit. His name? Jesus. Not kidding. We call him Zeus for short, which I like better. This is Zeus. I know it's a bad picture, but all I had was my phone. He's really big. Like probably 8 lbs.

So then I tried to get her to use a goddess name for the female, like Hera (Zeus's wife), Aphrodite or Venus. But no...her friend Ciara got to name the other one. You would think her name is Ciara, right? No...

Post Options

Labels for this post: e.g. scooters, vacation, fall

This is Raeya. Pronounced Raya. I have no idea why, it just is. So we have Zeus and Raeya. Raeya is quite a bit smaller than Zeus, although they are both about a year old. It's a good thing we had that large hutch, because Zeus is a big boy. They are settling in and getting used to Shannon.

And as for the visitor...Danni is going to be here tomorrow! Yay! She is flying in tomorrow morning and will be here until Saturday. Then she gets one day to get herself together before she starts school. We still have another month of summer break here. Unfortunately.

I hope we have a fun week, doing stuff here and showing her around, and letting her revel in our 80 degree temperatures. Because that sounds better than three fighting sisters for a week. Kylie is pretty excited about her visit, so hopefully that will override the whole fighting thing. I can't wait for her to get here. I've missed her more than I realized.

Just One More Reason Why I Love Jimmy Carter

Yes, I love Jimmy Carter. I know many people think he wasn't a very good or effective president, and maybe he wasn't. I was nine years old when he took office, and I must admit, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the global political climate at the time. All I remember is waiting in some long-ass lines for gas in the back of my mom's station wagon.

But now, as an adult, I think he is an amazing man and human being. He is one of the few people in the public eye that I would say practices exactly what he preaches. A Christian who is not a hypocrite. I think there are precious few of those these days.

I have admired him for his work with Habitat for Humanity and civil rights. And I love his cute accent, which has nothing to do with anything. Now, he has left his church of 60 years in protest over religion's treatment of women, which he says perpetuates violence against and subjugation of women. You can read his essay here:

Losing My Religion For Equality

It seems like most of what we read about church leaders today involves sex scandals. It's nice, for once, to hear someone who will stand by his principles to the point where he will leave his church, telling them that they are wrong.

You know what I love most about Jimmy Carter? He makes me want to be a better person.

Heartbreak, Again

See that cute little bunny in that last post down there? I'm glad I got that picture, because she died last night, and I'm mad.

I'm mad at myself, because I should have known better than to buy an animal from a pet store in the mall. I would never buy a puppy from one of those stores, why did we think a rabbit would be ok?

I'm mad because the store said to save my receipt, in case...if she didn't survive a seven-day period, we could get a refund. We would, of course, have to bring in the body. Allie lived for 11 days after we bought her.

I'm mad because almost everything the store told us was wrong. After talking to the doctor at the pet emergency hospital last night, and the rabbit expert at the Humane Society, and reading everything I can find online, I know a lot more now.

The woman who sold us the rabbit told us that for the first year, the diet should be entirely rabbit pellets. The ER doctor, the rabbit expert, and countless others all say, wrong. A rabbit's diet should be about 70% Timothy hay, 20% leafy greens, like kale, and 10% store-bought pellets.

She also told us that rabbits were best in a cage by themselves. I guess that's why in the pet store, they have about a dozen of them in the same pen. According to the experts, rabbits are social animals. They like companionship.

But none of that is why Allie died.

Last night, while we were making dinner, Shannon said there seemed to be something wrong with Allie. She had been sitting in the same spot for a while. Her eyes were open and she was breathing, but she hadn't moved.

I told her to take the rabbit out of the cage and put her on the floor, and see what she did. My hope was that she would start hopping around, and everything would be fine. Unfortunately, what she did was flop over onto her side.

We called around and found a place to take her. It was almost 7pm by now. Allie laid in Shannon's arms the whole way, still, but breathing.

When we got there, we found out that her body temperature was only 92 degrees. Normal for a rabbit is about 101. She was pretty much comatose. She was only 13 weeks old.

The doctor told us that they could try and save her, but she was so far gone that it would be a long, and very expensive road, and even then, there was less than a 10% chance she would make it. She was very thin and dehydrated. She had been thin since we bought her, 11 days prior. I thought it was normal, since she was only 12 weeks old. I know Shannon had refilled the large water bottle at least once, so we didn't know she was dehydrated. We didn't know anything was wrong, until last night.

The doctor said that was very common, that it's often hard to tell with rabbits. They're furry, so you can't tell if they're underweight, unless you're very familiar with rabbits. Which we are not. Tuesday, she seemed fine. I held her. She crawled up my shoulder, and I petted her. I put her on the ground, and she hopped around some.

But now that I think about it, she was always extremely mellow. That picture of Shannon holding her on her back, like a baby? She wasn't mellow...she was sick. According to the vet last night, it's most likely that she was sick when we bought her. But we had no way of knowing that.

I'm mad that I had to watch my daughter break down as she walked to the back to say goodbye to her bunny. I asked her if she wanted me to go with her. She said no. I'm mad that she had to go through this.

We agreed to have her put down. But before they could, she died on her own. Had we waited about an hour longer, she would have died at home. Had we noticed a few hours earlier, maybe they could have saved her. At great cost, I'm sure. Or maybe not.


I'm mad that I had to pay $165 for the privilege of watching my daughter's heart break. $95 for the office visit, $70 for the ... um... disposal of the body. But I'm not mad at the hospital for that. They were only doing their jobs. They were very compassionate and wonderful, and I'm grateful for that.

I'm mad, because it's easier than crying. And I can't talk about this without crying. There are a lot of things that are tough about this whole parenting gig, but watching your child hurt is at the top of the list of the hardest things. Whether it's over a boy, or a girl, a fractured friendship, a lost pet, or mean words...it's hard. When they hurt, you hurt for them.

We've been on the phone with the Humane Society today. They have several Lops that all came in together, rescued from a "breeding house." They're all about 6-7 months old, all neutered and spayed, and all thoroughly checked out by a vet. We're told that they like to place them in pairs, because rabbits really like having a friend. In fact, some of them are already in pairs. The best match, according to them, is a spayed female and a neutered male. Like a married couple, but without the possibility of babies.

Steve and Shannon went down there when Steve got home from work. I have a feeling I know what will be coming home with them. And I hope, for Shannon's sake, that we get it right this time.


P.S. This was never meant to be an ad for the Humane Society. But please...if you are going to adopt a pet, please look into shelters and rescues, instead of pet stores. I wish I would have. And the thing is, I knew better. Or at least I should have.

Wordless Wednesday - Allie