Birthday Randomness

Two of my favorite things, cute hammies and Castle!

And to celebrate my birthday, Kristine and I are going on the Roswell Ghost Tour tonight led by our book club buddy and awesome author friend, Beth Dolgner!

Way Too Cute

Hello!  I'm here to make you *squee* and to wish you a happy Friday!

Addendum from Sarah to make your day even happier:

The 25 Happiest Animals In The World

Furry Favorites

I got a new cell phone in the mail today, so I'm clearing pictures off of my old phone. Here are a bunch of my favorites of pets past and present...

My hammie, R.B. "Arby" Hayes

HistoryDiva's guinea pig, Neville (her old picture ID)

Ralph and Booger watching me eat (picture ID for the parents)

Bum Ralph (picture ID for Dad's cell)

Booger, the contortionist dog (picture ID for Sarah)

Layla and her beloved squeaky ball (picture ID for Mary)

Garfield as a baby hammie

Hammie Antics

He looks like Arby, but has the acrobatic ability of Garfield...

The "thunk" at the end just makes me laugh!

Friday Funny

Yes, it looks a bit photoshopped...

But the hamster looks like Garfield's predecesor, Arby!

Hammie News

My foster-hamster, Trevor, died this past summer of old age.

My fuzzy punk, Garfield, joined him in the hamster burial plot in the backyard the weekend before Thanksgiving. He was one of the youngest hamsters I've lost--he would have been two in March.

I will try to find pictures to upload when I get a computer at home that connects to the internet...

Friday Funny

For LibraryDiva--
Maybe Carl should have asked Garfield to deliver your couch?

Noms from Grandma

My mother likes to buy treats for her grand-hammies from time to time. One of my favorites to give them is the big stick-o-hammie food that will last them a week.

Trevor says, "nom nom nom" (notice that the treat is almost bigger than he is).

Garfield says, "If I showed you where I hid my nom stick, then I would have to kill you."

Oopsie...

Last night I cleaned two hamster cages while watching DWTS. Since Trevor's cage was new to me, it took a lot longer to figure out how to get it apart (and then back together...). Somewhere in this cleaning process, an integral part of his cage went out with the waste. I noticed when I put him back in his cage and he tried to run on his wheel. Apparently there is a critical pin that holds the wheel in place, and without it, the wheel falls off and pins the hamster underneath. Rather than sift through two hammie's worth of dirty cage litter, I stopped by my local pet superstore on the way home and bought a new wheel.

I think this wheel is actually more "Trevor-sized" than the original. And it gives him a little more room to run and play in his hammie home!

It didn't take too long for Trevor to discover the new addition to his cage...

Everything is right in the world now that the hammie is happy running on his wheel!

This Is Trevor

Garfield has a roommate.
His name is Trevor.

I introduced Trevor to the hammie ball when I brought him home last night. I can't wait to see what he does with all of the fun bedding I left for him in his really cool cage!

He was so tired after running around in the hammie ball that he fell asleep with his fuzzy rear end hanging out of a toilet paper tube!

A Humble Gathering

When I first left teaching, I became the leader of the Young Adult group at my local parish. A year ago, I decided to switch to a church closer to my new home. I started to miss the community at my old church, and have recently started going back there for Mass and renewing my old friendships. To this end, I offered my home for the "Humble Hearts" young adult group Christmas party.


My friend B is a foster mother. The crab puppet was just one of the many fun toys we used to entertain her girls.

Garfield: "You have a party, and all I get is a crust of bread? For shame! I'm going back up to bed!"

Hamsters in Space

Yes, I save random cute pictures of hamsters that I find online. Remember, I'm the H.O.P.S.F. (Hamster Owning Patrick Stewart Fan), so this is acceptable behavior...

EARLY YEARS OF HAMSTER SPACE TRAVEL

FIRST HAMMIE SPACE FLIGHT

DEVELOPMENT OF SPACE WEAPONS

SOMETHING GOES WRONG

THE HAMMIE POPULATION REACTS

Monday Cuteness

A nice dose of hammie cuteness (courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger?) to make up for the fact that it is Monday once again...

Hammie Hurdles

Garfield has gotten into the Olympic spirit! His chosen sport is the hurdles. Being nocturnal, he wakes up around 9:00 pm and starts gnawing on the bars of his cage. Since this annoys me (and I quickly run out of things within arm's reach to throw at his cage to make him stop for a few seconds), I usually let him run around in his ball while I watch TV, knit, play on the computer, etc.


Garfield lives in the playroom, which is upstairs. I don't like closing the door because it cuts off circulation, making the room hot and stuffy. So that Garfield doesn't make a sprint towards the staircase, I have found many things to use as door blocks, or in his eyes, hurdles. At first, I used my bean bag chair, but I would trip over it going in and out of the room because it was so bulky. Then I discovered that my rolled-up yoga mat is the perfect length to fit in the doorway.



Undeterred, Garfield continues to try to conquer this hurdle despite the fact that he has some trouble getting over the small bump up from the linoleum to the carpet when he rolls himself into the bathroom. In the meantime, I have discovered other great blocks to use in the doorway. I have been trying to teach myself to play the piano for over a year, so I have a battery-powered keyboard in the playroom (which is probably a big part of the reason that I practice so infrequently). It's been more useful as a hammie hurdle lately.


And since the Harry Potter paperbacks came in so useful when I was measuring Molly Weasley's First Scarf, I brought them out again to use in the doorway. Watch as Garfield tries to conquer his newest hurdles... maybe he'll get it by the time the Olympics are (maybe) in Madrid in 2016!

Hide & Seek

"She'll never find me here with all of her yarn!"

"No fair! You peeked!"

Mission Complete!

My favorite father, aka Coach Ceiling Fan, was sweet enough to come over yesterday and help me complete my first project. It took a lot longer than expected--we'll just say that the contractor who built my house obviously didn't take the time to consider that real people were going to be living in the house he built, and that caused a few difficulties and a run to the local Home Depot for spacers and longer screws.

But we got the fan up (I say "we" because I was too short to get the actual ceiling fan guts up into the bracket, so Dad did the heavy lifting, playing with wires that were out of my reach, etc.) It is much nicer than the one it replaced, and I am now a pro at assembling and installing fan blades.

Speaking of the one it replaced, Garfield seems happy to have the old fan upstairs in the playroom. Dad mounted this one on the ceiling for me as well (with a trip to Wally for the appropriate screws--thank you Mr. Slacker Contractor for the light fixture that was held up by one rusty screw), and I cleaned and attached the fan blades all by myself!

"Wow! I just know that is going to make my room so much cooler!"

Molly Weasley's First Scarf

HistoryDiva has a good friend who taught herself to knit (not me--two former co-workers are responsible for my fiber corruption). This friend's first project was a scarf in the colors of Gryffindor, which she gifted to HistoryDiva upon its completion. You know how they say that it's the thought that counts? Well, the running joke was that this particular scarf must have been Molly Weasley's first attempt at knitting. I took pictures using my paperback volumes of Harry Potter to demonstrate the scale for the proportions of this garment. It was approximately a foot and a half in width and just a bit longer than four feet in length.

At some point in time, I volunteered myself to reclaim this yarn and knit it into a functional scarf for HistoryDiva. Since I had nothing better to do tonight, I decided that it was finally time to get going on this project instead of allowing it to continue collecting dust in my craft closet. I don't own a ball winder, so my chosen method (the poor girl method) of rolling yarn is to literally roll it--onto toilet paper rolls. Garfield didn't seem too thrilled about this.

"Mama, aren't you saving those tubes for me?"

Garfield will just have to live without a toilet paper tube chew toy in his cage until I can get this project onto needles. In the meantime, I have run out of tubes to unravel the last two stripes, and I'm feeling a little bit like Rumplestilskin with all of these rolls of yarn laying around my playroom...

Cuteness Overload

Baby hamsters are just too cute!