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Word of the Day 1.1.11

TODAY’S WORD OF THE DAY IS:

 

RESOLUTION

(Obviously)

Every year millions of us set out to begin new with a series of resolves and a new set of rules for our lives.  Usually, the new ideas fizzle within a few weeks, leaving us as failures in our own minds.

 

This year, I am hoping to change that for myself, and am only resolving to continue my journey upwards.  This year will mark my 6 year anniversary away from substance abuse, and the road has looked up ever since.

I will continue in my tarantula hobby, and perhaps grow the “zoo” by a few critters.

I will continue to read books that enrich my life and vocabulary, while straying from medias that inspire negativity.

I will continue to not smoke, drink, or do whatever it is I did before.

I will continue to love my family, and be as present for them as humanly possible.

I will continue to wear slacks with funny socks, collect sporks, and play with bugs.

I will continue to drink coffee until I get so tired of it I stop.

I will continue to enjoy life, even in the simplest ways.

Isis and Buddha
Isis (B. smithi) and Buddha
Finally got them off the floor!! 12.31.10
Off The Floor 12.31.10

Sporks on my Wall

 

 

I resolve to keep going.

 

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POST A WEEK/DAY 2011….I’m undecided

So….  I fizzled on NaNoWrimo– but made it to roughly 1/2 the expected word count in spite of the timing of a major move and complete job/city change.

Now WordPress wants bloggers to challenge themselves to a blog a day, or for people like me- a blog a week.  Here, I will vow to you to blog at least once a week regarding updates on the zoo.

I might even try the post a day and incorporate a more popular blog I write on my personal social networks: Word of the Day.

I am not going to make any absolute promises, and if I do attempt the craziness of POSTADAY2011, I will be sure to tag correctly so that you all can still find the zoo blogs with ease.

BTW- Happy New Year to everyone!

Update and 16 Legs, perhaps……

Well folks, I have been a very bad blogger.  So far, no pictures, and no LS report for the newly molted.  Things have been pretty crazy around the desktop, but rest assured, the goodies are coming.

MOLT UPDATE:

Annabel Lee Molted last Sunday, and is getting bigger by the minute!  According to my note card records, she was a stunning 1/2″ after her last molt, which leads me to believe that she is around 3/4″ now!

Raven, Alee’s litter mate, should also be molting soon.  According to the same records, she molted 6 days after Alee last time.  I am curious to see if they will remain on schedule.

Additions Update:

Through the magick of Facebook, I have had the opportunity to meet and greet some of you, and many other enthusiasts from around the globe.  One of whom has just successfully bred a Poecilotheria Subfuscia!!  (Well…more like bred, egg sat, hatched, egged with legged, and over-saw molts into 2nd instar…) He has offered to send me one of these adorable little critters, and even managed to wrangle me an Ephebopus cyanathogos! (Blue Fang!!!!!!!) I am flattered by the gesture, and thank *you* for the idea!!

I hope to one day be in a position that allows me to also send out 8-legged packages to random people across the US.

Speaking of positions, an opportunity to move locations has come our way, and I must say that I am excited to jump on it!  Currently, the desktop and I reside (with my husband) in a small apartment in Grants Pass, Oregon that is no longer meeting our needs.

Within the next month or 2 I expect us all to be starting fresh with a new apartment, and new jobs in our closest big city.  This will not only grant me the opportunity to possibly meet other hobbyists, but it will also allow me more freedom to begin breeding projects as room and time expand!

One of the many perks of moving will also place me by SOU, where I hope to study biology, and pass (knowledge) along to 5th and 6th graders as a teacher.  It took a high school teacher to inspire my love of reptiles and crawley things, and I want to bring the same joys to a kid like me…

(Thank you Ms. Bodily, you are one of my select heros.)

In addition to this, I am getting out of the retail game while I prepare to go back to school, so hours will once again change, but opportunities will grow for all of us on and around the desktop of Sid and Nata.

Let’s all not forget the upcoming NaNoWriMo event that starts in exactly 32 days!  I will be taking on the task of 50,000 words by the end of November that may actually look loosely like a story that some may call a novel…..  I am in research mode for this, and have a few ideas that may prove fruitful with a bit of TLC and lots of coffee!  If you are in the mood to race with thousands of people from around the world,come join in at NaNoWriMo.org!!  Look for me under the user name “Sidnata” and we can be writing buddies 🙂

Keep baring with me, and as soon as I get it together, the website and FB pages will be published for the world to see!  Wish us luck!!

National Novel Writing Month

Last night, I was asked by a friend of mine to join her during National Novel Writing Month.  She told me to google the word NaNoWriMo, and there it was:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/.

This means that for the month of November, 100,000’s of people from across the WORLD will be doing nothing but putting together 50,000 words that may form some type of novel that has no real need for high quality, no agent to tell them to do better, and no focus EXCEPT for word count.

Why?

Because too many people put off the Novel within their souls because they never have time, it won’t be good enough, so on and so fourth.

They do it because of the cool satisfaction of having written a novel in 30 days or less.

Some of those novels may actually find their way into the presses of some cool publishing company because without the push of NaNoWriMo, the novel may have never been written at all-crap or not.

I think I have 4 or 5 novels that could benefit from the deadline of NaNoWriMo, and so I am telling you-my dear anonymous reader-that I will be participating (under the name Sidnata) if you choose to join and want to say Hi.

I wanted to post about this here, because it has been a dream of mine for some time to write childrens books, and most of them (in my head, with a few on paper) have been nature/bug themed.

I usually put them away because I cannot afford the fee of a proper illustrator, and then we have the business of finding a REPUTABLE publishing company to submit to.

I PUT THEM AWAY, and this is not a good thing.

So, I am hoping that NaNoWriMo will give me the spark to pick up the old pages and dust them off…and of course to try my hand at writing something even bigger!

This blog was started to keep me writing, in some form or another, and I am glad that my friend invited me to this cool event!

Check it out, and I hope to see some of you there!!!

Frank Zappa and the Girl who loved Noodles

Frank Zappa was a loud, charismatic and over the top musician who put the song “Catholic Girls” in my head for years.  Frank Zappa is also a flea bitten clump of fur that is currently licking unmentionable parts of his anatomy at my feet.  It should be obvious to you that the lyrical genius behind the breath taking lyrics “Why does it Hurt When I pee?” is NOT the subject of this blog, and the brown and black striped Fancy Feast machine is.

Frank

Frank

Frank Zappa, aka Frankie aka Frank (pronounced “Fronk”) is a pain in my ass, and while he is currently plotting my undoing, I am sitting here wondering how high the “Kitty Copter” could launch him. We have come to an understanding over the past 2 years that I am the human around here, and he is to obey my every command-once he releases my ankle in his bear hug.

This handsome boy, destined to become a thorn in my sock, started out in a less that desirable way. He came to me in a box, and from the looks of it, from a person who wanted to just get rid of the kitten. (But used the story of “finding this kitten on the side of the road.” to tug at my heart strings a bit.)

I was living alone in the western side of Los Angeles, and as the manager of a pet supply store, I knew that having a little kitty around was exactly what I had wanted.  Long story short, this was my first apartment without any traces of man or beast living along side of me.  I was a free woman with just a job, and internet connection, and not a TV or social life in sight.  Then came this kitty in a box, and my world suddenly became about it.

Funny thing about working at an animal supply store, is that one tends to not question when people tell you the sex of their pets.  The thought was no different as I blindly took the man’s word that this little kitten was a she.  My staff at the time put in suggestions for names immediately (as kitty spent my shift in the office) and the name Stella came about.  (after the raw diet we promoted for animals.)

Stella went home that night with a purple collar, heart shaped tag, and all the kitty necessities.

Over the next few weeks, she seemed sweet until one day she discovered how to knock over a coffee cup, thus ending my cream colored carpet for good.

After the first triumph, it was over for any cup after that, until Stella graduated to change, plants, and anything else sitting on a surface.

Baaad Kitty Stella!!

OOPS!- Remember the guy who gave me this girl kitty?  I guess he (and I) were too stupid to check under the skirt of this little kitty.  Stella, the vet announced, is a boy!

Damn!

I again had to choose a name for this heathen in fur, and my boyfriend came up with the name Frank, after the legend, and after the moments we had shared listening to the pee song (long ago) in his car at the park.  Frank Zappa it is.

About a year later, I flew Frank to Oregon where he has since become an outdoor kitty (and indoor, and in my bed, and on my chair, and on my ankle…) He has bonded well with my guy, and I am under the distinct impression that Frank has finally decided to get rid of me. Right before moving day, the sweet little kitty took a massive chunk out of my arm, actually causing nerve damage.  I guess he wanted to play…or kill me. $100.00 later for the doctor, and another $100 to the airline (plus the cost of my ticket) and we boarded the plane to Oregon.  I got Coach, Frank got cargo.  PFFFFFTTTHHHHHHHH!!!!

Frank fights with me over the lap of my guy, and even tries to steal my food (buttered noodles, cheese, ANYTHING.)  I would steal his, but Fancy Feast is just NOT my cup of tea- which too gets knocked over by the cat once named Stella.

Heeere kitty kitty…I got a present for youuuuu!!

It seems that Mr. “Fronk” is not a fan of the spray bottle I use to add humidity to the spider tanks.  Mr “Fronk” is also not a fan of the spiders, as he sits and plots away at how to knock them off the surface once used as just a desktop.  Like the change that went flying off my tables in LA, 1..2…3..plop plop plop, I could see the mini deli cups hitting the floor, rattling the tarantulas that will soon become bigger than the flea bag himself.

Oh, how I can’t wait to see the day 😀

Frank and I simply manage, and as the war progresses, I will keep you up to date.

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Newbie Tools- Things I have been learning…

Here is a short list of things I use, or have learned over the past few months as a newbie keeper.

1- Naming is important if you don’t want to say proper names over and over again:  EXA- Cyclosternum fasciatum, Brachypelma boehmei (which I had been mispronouncing for weeks!), Aphonopelma (unnamed sp.) “Davis Mountain Rusty” etc…..  Zero, Aphrodite, and Tank are much easier to say, and much easier for my husband to pronounce when he is talking to me.  It is the common place in which he can understand the language that I am speaking…all else leaves him utterly confused….

2-Film containers are the gifts of GODS!!  They can be used for scooping, digging, hiding, transporting and subduing prey.  They are also great for dead cricket removal!

3-A DIG KIT IS NECESSARY!  My dig kit contains the above mentioned film container, a paintbrush, the bottom of a sweater gift box (The kind that lazy people like me use to give sweaters at christmas ’cause I am too lazy to wrap OR get a better gift!) I also have a flashlight on hand at all times, and a spoon.

4-Dig Kits Are Necessary when someone like me wanted a better view of my spiderlings and put them in jars with too much soil. (and then a week or so of NOT seeing my spiderlings at all!,  10 minutes with the jar and a dig kit, and you may  find your spiderling somewhere in the big brown soil void.  I like to use my dig kit on the bed.  My husband likes to sit on the couch at these times.

5-Holding a tarantula in bed is fun- unless your husband is eating. Apearantly he does NOT want to see Sarva, no matter how sweet she is!

6-Tarantulas are a great way to spend the money you saved from quitting smoking!  If your husband does not want the tarantulas, offer to take up smoking again.  Chances are, you will be a master keeper in no time!

7- Tarantulas dance.  I call it the “I Got Food” dance.

8-Forums are useful!  You may look like a newbie, but little do those people know, you are only asking stupid questions so that real newbies won’t have to be embarrassed when they go to ask them!

9- 3 cool tarantulas beat your neighbor’s froofy Bischon poodle yappy thing in the pet department hands down. Your dog wears T- Shirts?  My tarantula does the “I got food” dance.- a 10cents cricket is well worth the spending! …..no Cesar Milan video necessary.

10- Crickets are for quick feeding, or you will surely pack up and leave your home from the stench.

I have many more newbie thoughts…and these are in no random order.  I will keep the list running, and if you have a newbie thought, please share!  Real newbies would hate to feel alone and retarded when it comes to keeping…

Feeding, Sexing and a pig named Zero

You might be wondering why I have 2 videos of Zero here.  Let me explain:

Last night was feeding time on the Desktop, and after everyone was given their crickets, I had one large cricket left.  Zero was already feasting on a cricket, but since I know how much she loves to eat, I decided to give the last one to her.

In the videos, you can see her chewing on one, next to the cricket she was originally feasting on!  PIG!!!

If you notice, Zero’s sex is being referred to as “SHE”.  Thanks to one of my many learning aids, I am pretty sure she is a FEMAL!!  WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! (Just learned about doing this roughly 45 minutes ago!)

Feeding:

Everyone got a cricket except for Aphrodite- who appears to be not eating.  My N. Coloratvillosus traded its cricket for a roach that was living in its soil (iin a new enclosure.)  Both Nhandu sp. were moved into jars!  WHOOOO!!!

Isis is also not eating…..but I think the last cricket may have filled (her?) up for a while….

Raven ate well (L. parahybana), but her sibling is also not eating…hmmmmm..

A Quickie Before Bed

I love quickies….

So, here is mine for the night…

Tomorrow, Dan and I are headed to Fish Lake by Klammath Falls to test run our new car!  YAY!!  Being that this is a buggy blog though, you might be wondering why I am posting about this here.

Well, not only are we taking the car for a trip…but I will also be filming with my webcam out there!  If all goes well, it appears there may even be a wifi connection to stream from..so look for videos-’cause if I can post them, I WILL!!

I am bringing my bug catching gear, and Dan’s 35mm…his seems to work, so we will give it try!  Keep your fingers crossed!!!!

I have a few jars, and a nifty film container, so hopefully I will be bringing home some new critters for the desktop!  You never know!!

Pictures will probably be uploaded to Insect Geeks first, so be on the lookout….

See you all tomorrow! 😀