This is Our Family

January 4th 2010

I thought I would skip ahead to now because all this time we have basically been playing with Bella and cleaning her cage.  She still refuses to poop in her litterbox. 

The thing that really gets me is that today while the kids were playing with her I cleaned her cage out, like I do everyday.  The minute that little critter gets back in her cage, she poops and not in her litterbox either.  And I have done everything the book recommends.  I have put her in her litterbox before taking her out.  All she does is get out, I put her back in, she gets out, this goes on for a few minutes before I give up because she bites me.  I have put some poop in the litterbox hoping that she will get the idea, no dice.  I have put her in the litterbox when I have seen her start going else where, that gets me wet and sometimes bit.

I don't think she wants to be litter box trained if you ask me.  I think she likes pooping all over her cage and walking through it.  Do you know that ferrets poop and pee every few hours?  Do you know how much poop and pee that is in the bottom of her cage everyday?

Oh and on New Years Eve we decided to let her roam around the downstairs without blocking her in the kitchen.  I must say it went rather well, but the kids wouldn't stop picking her up every time she tried to go under something like the TV stand, which got her too excited and she began to get nippy.  And for some strang reason she also enjoys chewing on my shoulder strap to my bra every time I hold her.  I am currently reading up on more tips to stop the nipping and chewing.  Though she is still just a baby, better to break her of a bad habit now.

More later

Love and Light

Monday December 28, 2009

Christmas with Bella was uneventful.  It was bringing her out to play in our kitchen that we got baby gates for to block off, cleaning all the poop out of her cage, and feeding her.

I decided to buy a book called "Ferrets for Dummies" by Kim Schilling.  It has everything one needs to know about the little critters.  For instance they are related to polecats, infact they say they are domesticated polecats.  What are polecats?  I always thought they were skunks, but I could be wrong, maybe I will research that.

The book says they can be litter box trained, which is a good thing because she goes in every corner but the corner with her litterbox in it.  She likes to bite toes especially with socks on them.  Another habit that according to the book can be broken by say "No!" firmly and putting her back in her cage "jail time"  So far, that has not been going so well.  She still likes to bite.

She does however love to play with our youngest cat Yoshi.  They chase each other and wrestle, it is pretty darn cute.  She makes this cute little noise as she scampers after the cat.

I think she would have loved to get out during the whole opening of the presents thing, but that was enough of a mess without  her tunneling and ripping paper, besides according to the book they can eat things and choke.  I guess they are also notorius theives and can steal and hide things, so I guess just letting her out to roam around our house is not going to happen anytime soon.

I will be getting her a leash and harness, when spring comes I would love to take her outside.  I have also looked on the internet and have seen pictures of ferrets and their owners walking around together, ferret on shoulder.  I have seen ferrets in some really cute clothes, maybe that will be something to do next.

Love and Light

Wednesday December 23rd.

Place The Kennel Shoppe.  For reasons unknown to myself I decided to cave in and let my husband and my children bring home a ferret.  Not a cheap endeavor, $119 for the ferret, $150 for the cage, and about $45 for litter box, food, hammock and toys.

I don't know a  lot about these little critters, but she sure is cute.  She is white with some black hairs.  She is 4 months old and we named her Bella.  At the pet store they put her in a box and we purchased all the supplies and headed home with what I figure will be a great adventure because all though I don't know a  lot about them I have heard that they do get into things worse then kids do.  Boy what am I doing.

So we get her home and my husband proceeds to put her "Ferret Nation" multi-level cage together, which was an advenure all it's own.

In the mean time we let down on the floor because she was really digging at her box.  Well the dogs took to her like they do every new little animal that comes in the house.  They hovered over her followed and sniffed her where ever she went.  Then she got excited and nipped at them.  Then she started to chase them around and they chased her around.  It was a little chaotic for a while. 

Finally the cage was done and her litter box, bowl, water bottle, and hammock were done and I happily put her in the cage with her toys and watched her.  She is really cute and I think life with her will be fun.  I think though that I really need to buy a book on ferrets to learn more about them.

Love and LIght

It often amazes me how life works.

My neighbor across the street, whose name I do not know, ever since we have lived here which is now 9 years, everytime we have gotten stuck in our driveway in the winter he comes over with his truck or backo and pulls us out.  He has never been asked to, he just does it.  We have always said thank you, but that has been it.

Well this year I decided, after he plowed me and the kids out one morining, to get him a $10 Dunkin Donuts card and a gift certificate for a 1 hour massage.  Not knowing if massages were his "thing" or not.  I also found out his name is Gary and I left a card with my little gifts in his mailbox.  Today he calls me thanking me for the gifts and he tells me that his back has been bothering him.  He messed it up in a snowmobile accident several years ago and used to see a massage therapist that walked on his back.  She had since moved and he really needs a massage and didn't know that I was a therapist.  Needless to say I set up and appointment for him and also he mentioned that he wouldn't mind plowing us out when we have a snow storm.  I told him why don't we exchange massages for plowing, and he agreed.

It just goes to show you in life the small gestures you do can turn out to mean so much to someone else and can also lead into something wonderful for all.

Love and Light

I never fails to amuse me that people who have lived in Maine a long time and even those who have only been here a short time complain about the weather here in Maine.

"Boy can it get any colder?"  Umm yeah it can it is Maine and it is winter.

"I can't believe how cold it is."  Really....New England, winter hmmm.

This coming from people who are wearing nothing but a long sleeve shirt or sweat shirt and saying, " I forgot my coat at home."  Seriously, it is cold out  and you knew it was cold out, but somehow you managed to forget your coat.

Yes it is cold, but you know what it is Maine and I for one thought today was a picture perfect, beautiful winter day.  The sun was shinning and sparkling off what is left of the snow.  A really nice day.  I loved it, bring it on!

Love and Light

Yes it's only December 9th, but Jesse and I have already talked about our plans for 2010 and how we are change a few things.

For starters more family time.  Less time on our computers and more time playing games and doing activities with the kids.  Movie nights, game nights, craft nights.  All things we want to start making weekly occurances and not a monthly or longer thing.

Second, we want to have weekly date nights, just the two of us doing something fun.

Third, the hardest one by far, getting a grip on our finances so we can actually have some money to do things.  Time to become penny pinchers, find out exactly where our money is going because it sure isn't staying with us.

Fourth, we want to start socializing more.  Dong things with friends.  I think we have started getting in a routine of working and family and not doing anything with our friends.  We want to reconnect with old friends and make new friends.

Fith and final, we want to start eating healthier and excersising more.  Have you noticed that the more technology we get the less we actually have to move?  The WII system we have is great for getting up and moving, but we need to do more, more playing outside, more excersing.

I guess we realized that we have become too disconnected as a family, we have been tired from work, finacial stress, school.  We need to reconnect with our lives and our spirits.  2010 is going to be the year we do all of these things and fill our selves up with love, laughter, and spirituality.  Wish us Luck!

Love and Light

I knew the time would come when one of my children would struggle with some subject in school.  I didn't think it would be 3rd grade math, but here we are.  My daughter is struggling with Math and I don't blame her.  The math they are teaching, to me, has no rhyme or reason to it.  It is called "Everyday Math". I don't know who the genius was behind this idea, but what chiaos this thing is.  One day they are adding then the next day they are estimating perameters, then the next telling time. 

When I was in grade school they had us doing one thing and when we were secure in that one thing we would move on.  Some may remember doing math drills.  Where you had all the addition for 1's and when you got those down and all right you would move on to the 2's etc...  They don't do that anymore and that is what my daughter is having a problem with.  She is not secure in her addition and subtraction so when she is trying to do word problems or larger addition or subtraction problems she is having a problem, so what does a parent do?

My solution is to have her doing those math drills at home on the weekends so that she is secure in simple addition/subtraction in hopes that everything else will come easy to her once she has this down.  She is also enrolled in an after school math club to help her learn this everyday math better as well.

I have to say based on my experience with the students that are coming out of High School, this everyday math is not working.  An example is a student I had when I was teaching who wanted to divide.  She had a calculator and though I can't remember the exact numbers I'll just say she wanted to divide 2942 by 34.  She asked me which number do you put in the calculator first.  Another example, a student was trying to figure out the number of massages she would be doing in clinic with 120 clinic hours 1 massage equals 2 clinic hours.  She got out a piece of paper and started drawing the number chart that she learned in high school inorder to figure this out.  It doesn't work people.  That is why I have decided when it comes to school, yes they will do their homework and learn the way the school teachers them, but I will be teaching them as well.  Like I said my daughter is going to be doing old school math drills on the weekends to make sure she is confident in her addition/subtraction and I will continue to do math drills until she graduates.

Love and Light

I knew the time would come when one of my children would struggle with some subject in school.  I didn't think it would be 3rd grade math, but here we are.  My daughter is struggling with Math and I don't blame her.  The math they are teaching, to me, has no rhyme or reason to it.  It is called "Everyday Math". I don't know who the genius was behind this idea, but what chiaos this thing is.  One day they are adding then the next day they are estimating perameters, then the next telling time. 

When I was in grade school they had us doing one thing and when we were secure in that one thing we would move on.  Some may remember doing math drills.  Where you had all the addition for 1's and when you got those down and all right you would move on to the 2's etc...  They don't do that anymore and that is what my daughter is having a problem with.  She is not secure in her addition and subtraction so when she is trying to do word problems or larger addition or subtraction problems she is having a problem, so what does a parent do?

My solution is to have her doing those math drills at home on the weekends so that she is secure in simple addition/subtraction in hopes that everything else will come easy to her once she has this down.  She is also enrolled in an after school math club to help her learn this everyday math better as well.

I have to say based on my experience with the students that are coming out of High School, this everyday math is not working.  An example is a student I had when I was teaching who wanted to divide.  She had a calculator and though I can't remember the exact numbers I'll just say she wanted to divide 2942 by 34.  She asked me which number do you put in the calculator first.  Another example, a student was trying to figure out the number of massages she would be doing in clinic with 120 clinic hours 1 massage equals 2 clinic hours.  She got out a piece of paper and started drawing the number chart that she learned in high school inorder to figure this out.  It doesn't work people.  That is why I have decided when it comes to school, yes they will do their homework and learn the way the school teachers them, but I will be teaching them as well.  Like I said my daughter is going to be doing old school math drills on the weekends to make sure she is confident in her addition/subtraction and I will continue to do math drills until she graduates.

Love and Light

Wow, it's been a while since I have blogged.  I have been busy with facebook and my business and family and friends.  I can not believe how blessed I have been.

I stopped teaching at the school, it was making me so tired and I had to turn away clients, which I really hated.  I will miss my students, but I do not miss the work that went into teaching.

More recently I (or I should say Jesse and I) were blessed with the opportunity to met up with friends we had not seen in a while.  It was such a great night, we sat around the fire, we talked, we laughed, we drank, maybe a little too much, but it was such a great night.  I can't wait to do it again!

Both the kids are now in school all day, which means I have the whole day to myself, when I am not working.  I have decided to take sometime to myself and go for walks on the beach.  I have only been once so far, but I can't wait to do it agian.  It was such a different feeling being able to walk with out children.  I mean it is such freedom, granted it would be nice to talk to someone while walking, but it still is a great feeling.  I am going again this Tuesday and maybe even Wednesday before I have to work on Thursday and Friday.

What a different feeling it is to be at home alone and the house is so quiet, not the same quiet as when they are sleeping, but a really still quiet and then I think what am I going to do with the day....ANYTHING I want!  To beable to sit and read a book uninterupted, take a real shower, have a complete thought.   Don't get me wrong I love my kids, but I have been with one or both of them all day long 24/7 for 8 years now, it's nice to have some ME time.

Now I will get to blog more often too. 

Well signing off now and more later.

Love and Light

So with all this rain, we decided to take a little walk in out back yard to see what was there that may not be there when it is sunny.  This is what we found.

  One interesting looking grasshopper.

 I think these are some type of mushroom...If anyone knows what they are, let me know.

 A bright yellow mushroom.

 One thing about the rain, it makes everything lush and green.

  This was just an odd shaped tree.

  Look at these odd bugs!  They are going in our garden,  I like these type of bugs, they don't fly or crawl and they will decorate the garden.

Love and Light