Some more photos

Me watching Ferrer's match.

Me in the background after Ferrer won.

Just for clarification, I like Ferrer, he is definitely a cutie and I don't have anything bad to say about him but looking at this blog you'd think I was majorly obsessed, I am not, well not majorly, that's the key word, hehe.  It just happened that his match was the only one Leslie also went to and I was across the way, hence all the in the background pictures.  She has many many many many other photos, mostly Federer, that I am not putting up.  Those are all being put up on Rogerfederer.com, some even on the home page because she is that elite, haha.  She has a lot of Fer and Feli pics too, we watched their doubles match, it was ridiculously crowded.  My true obsession is Robredo but I was always by myself watching his matches or him practice and I am not the greatest photographer so those photos have not been deemed worthy.  Just wanted to add that little bit of clarification. Oh and all the tennis pictures besided the ones in A post just for my Jewish Mother are Leslie Martino's and I and she would greatly appreciate it if you did not use them without crediting or permission.  

Shirt change time *drool* and an adorable Fer

Mid-match shirt change for Ferrer, it really is the simple things in life that are pleasing. 

Adorable Fernando Verdasco

While I was gone

So life back at home still goes on when I am not around, surprising isn't it, haha.  The right turn only lane three blocks from my home was taken out.  That's all I have noticed really...besides my cat and that is where this blog really starts.  

A bit of background, my 7 year old cat, Otsego, has some neurotic issues I guess, she basically has Bald Belly Syndrome.  She chews her fur off of her belly or whatever area she decides at the time.  We treat it with Obsession Remedy from Spirit Essences, works wonders.  She stopped chewing and grew back all her fur.  We were running low on it before I left and lowered her treatment and she was fine, we then got a new bottle of Skin Soother this time which is suppose to help treat chewing as well and we got it over Obsession because our 2 year old kitten, Harley Quinn, has itchy flaky skin and figured we could kill two birds with one stone.  

So while I was gone at tennis apparently Otsego started chewing again and pretty bad.  Now the question is was it because of the different formula or because I was gone and she couldn't deal with the absence of me?  Isn't that more of a dog thing, aren't cats suppose to be more independent?  My husband was home the whole time, almost literally the whole time.  He only worked one day while I was gone and home the rest of the time, he took a staycation while I was gone. So here are some pics of the baldy.  Let's hope all gets better now that I am home and we don't have to buy another bottle.  

A post just for my Jewish Mother...

Why                didn't             you 

come          watch      my     match?

Now I must wipe the tears from my eyes.

Photos from Yahoo.

Another shot of Ferrer with his towel

Pictures from yesterday

Cute little puppy dog Ferrer carrying his towel in his mouth. 

Me to the left of Ferrer in a changeover during the match. 

Ferrer bending over after match with me in background. I definitetely didn't have best view at this time, teehee.

Tennis Day 5 (3.15.09)

In the morning I took all but my food things and other odds and ends to my car so it was pretty much all ready for me to take off when I decided I had to tear myself away. Got to tennis headed straight into David Ferrer's match, he won, it was on stadium 3 where I watched Tommy Robredo and Fernando Verdasco win.  Ferrer is fun to watch, I love how he carries his towel in his mouth to the baseline after change overs, so cute like a little puppy dog.  Can I take him home with me.  I wandered around and watched Andy Murray practice for 10  min or so and thought to myself, nothing is going on I should just drive home now but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  

I saw that Robredo/Gonzalez match was next up, just had to finish Tursonov v Russel which was in first set so went over to court 6 to check it out and I ended up on court 5, in a first row standing room only spot for Verdasco/Lopez doubles match.  They are so pretty, can I take them home with me too, you think my husband would be mad if I showed up with a bunch of Spaniards in tow, haha.  They lost but it was still fun to watch.  

At that time it was a bit after 4pm and Tursonov match was looking like it was going into a 3rd set, I happened to wander into Leslie at the big scoreboard and Tursonov match did go into 3rd set so she took me back to hotel, helped me take last of my bags to my car and I hit the road. Got good time driving home and so bummed I wasn't still at tennis.  Robredo/Gonzalez ended up winning, wish I could have been there.  

Ate some dinner, relaxing on couch watching what Tivo recorded for me when all of a sudden my husband's phone rings really loud and startles us, it was Leslie asking why I was not answering my phone and to call her because I am going to die.  I call her and she tells me she got me a signed and personalized picture of Gavin Rossdale for me.  She took a picture of him when he was there with Roger at one of his practice sessions last year and she printed it up along with her photos of players. How awesome is that, just sucks that I have to wait a whole week till I can have it, unless I end up driving back out for next weekend depending on who is in finals.  

I had so much fun at tennis and besides the great times and stories I walk away with a signed photo of Marat Safin and a personalized one of Gavin.  She just sent me a picture message of the signed photo. Can't wait to see it myself.  Now I have to go buy two frames, one for Safin and one for Gavin.  

HSA Pictures

I have not even gotten to the grounds yet today and I am already missing it since I have to leave at some point today.  I am all ready to go, very anxious, grounds don't open till 10.  So here are a few choice pictures from random days of the HSA. If you don't know what HSA are oh well for you, just feast your eyes on these boys.

Robredo and Nadal

 

Feliciano Lopez

David Ferrer

Fernando Verdasco

Tennis Day Four (3.14.09)

No pics and short and simple.  Watched Robredo match from second row behind umpire chair. He won.  Wandered around not much new. Watched Verdasco from same spot later in day.  He also won. Saw same players around practicing and doing their thing. So tired after sitting in sun all day. 

One bit of news over heard, don't know validity of it. Apparently Roddick is getting married next month in Texas. I am not a Roddick follower so don't know if that news is already out there.  

After Fer's match I wandered while most were in watching Federer cruise in his match, I sat and watched Ferrer practice his serve and then do a bunch of crunches and things on court.  Quite entertaining, teehee. 

Other thing, rode on elevator up to room with Justin Gimelstob. I think he was coming from the gym at the hotel, very nice little gym they have here.  Or I guess he could have been out running or something. But it was end of day so he could have been in a suit and tie and I probably wouldn't have noticed, but he wasn't and I did notice.  

Time to get some sleep, first up tomorrow, Ferrer, from same spot I watched Tommy and Fer play and win, it's the lucky Spanish spot. Vamos!  Have to drive home tomorrow, Tommy and Gonzo doubles are last match on 6, Safun is last day match on 2 which will probably be a night match anyways, so I guess I will watch Ferrer and then check out the practice courts till I feel the need to go home.  I will never feel the need to go home but I will drag myself home. So sad I am leaving.  Also Gonzo just took court to play Hewitt as I write this, what a late match.  

Oh and my eye was better today, I did take some Claritin and that helped but they are definitely not happy little puppies but I don't spend much time in the sun in my daily life so they will just have to suffer.  

Tennis Day Three (3.13.09)

No pictures in this post sorry.  

Day started out with the usual looking at practice courts.  Robredo was practicing on court 7 before the first match there.  The seats were already full, it is a tiny court, three rows of folding chairs just as long as the court.  It maybe has 150 seats, not a lot at all, and only on one side of the court.  So after he is done I leave to do the regular practice round scope out for the until his doubles match was starting.  When the match before his was done I made my way into court 7.  No seats still, standing room only but I was standing right behind the back row so I had a good view, a very nice view in fact, hehe.  In second set I got a back row seat.  Here is the final score of his doubles match:

F Gonzalez (CHI) / T Robredo (ESP) d R Schuettler (GER) / R Soderling (SWE) 63 61

YAY. So excited for them.  

After the match I grabbed myself a front row seat for the next match. 

D Ferrer (ESP) / A Montanes (ESP) d I Karlovic (CRO) / D Vemic (SRB) 64 64

Why could I not have a front row for Tommy too.  Karlovic is so very tall.  About two games into that match my eye, which I almost poked out on Tuesday night watering my pine tree started killing me.  It has been a bit red and watery since Tuesday night but I could barely even open it at this point.  I think the combo of the sun and the poking was getting to it, but wearing a wide brim had did nothing so it was just even the reflective light.  I was in agony and still am a bit.  I did pretty much nothing else after that match.  Watched a big of Monfils practice and finished the day off watching shirtless Igor Andreev and Marat Safin practicing.  That was fun and made me feel a bit better.  

I also saw Tsonga and Djokovic, who I mistook for Gasquet from a far, they were quite crowded so I couldn't see so well and didn't stick around to really be able to tell.  I only realized my mistake when I followed Monfils out to the same court and realized it was not Gasquet.  Nalbandian, Ferrer, Nadal, Federer, and others I am forgetting were also seen today.  

Dinner time and then resting my eye.  I got myself some Claritin in case it's an allergy thing, my nose is a bit runny, cross your fingers I don't get drowsy, if I do I will be the chick asleep on stadium 3 during Robredo's match tomorrow.  

Tennis Day Two (3.12.09)

Day started out in a rush to get to grounds around ten, didn't get to bed till 3 or so.  Got to grounds and Roger Federer was practicing.  Les and crew stood there for the hour practice, I headed to the other practice courts.  Found David Nalbandian took a few pics then moved on to Tommy Robredo. I was literally the only person watching him practice. What is wrong with people? Picture of me happy happy, and a bit tired looking already.

A few hours later my phone suddenly died and I was pissed, after I had already tweeted: "Moved on to Tommy Robredo. No matter what else happens today I will be a happy girl. :) So easy to please." That's what I get for saying that.  For the rest of the day I had no way of telling what time it was or knowing where my friends were, we don't tend to stick together.  Get back to hotel and apparently my battery just up and all of a sudden died.  At least I don't have to go find a T-Mobile store.  

Back to tennis.  Throughout the day I saw many players practicing, Tsonga, Murray, Gasquet, 

Ferrer, Haas, Tursonov, Acasuso, Canas, and more I can't think of now.  First was a call from a friend in NY who informed us Mirka, Roger Federer's girlfriend is pregnant. That was exciting news.  

Other highlights from the day: 

Tommy Robredo of course, I could watch him all day.  

Marat Safin practiced and was not too crowded because Hewitt was playing on the main stadium. When he was done practicing Les got a picture she took a few years ago signed and wished him good luck and said, "We'll miss you." and without missing a beat in a monotone but sexy voice only Safin can pull off looked down at her and responded, "No you won't." Funny as Safin always is but also very very sad.  

All day yesterday Les was waiting for Fernando Verdasco, probably hands down the sexiest man on tour, she never saw him.  I saw him after Safin left, walking on grass area to come out and practice, quickly started yelling at her in a maniac manner, FER! FER! FER! Hurry get picture, she has a great shot of him from Davis Cup, I kept it up, shoving her, FER! FER! FER! FER! Hurry hurry go, I got her in such a panic it was hilarious.  He ended up coming onto the court Safin was on so we had front row spots.  He is looking mighty fine.  Hair in a REAL Mohawk, no sissy faux hawk, great smile and good form.  He said he's sign her picture after his practice, which he did.  He also signed her Spanish flag bandanna.  On court with him were Gil Reyes and Darren Cahill. 

WOW he will be a force to recon with for sure with that team working with him. They are all part of the Adidas team and that's why they are there.  He had been working with all of them in the off season too, in Vegas.  Fer was crazy packed with people so I meandered around, when the practice courts are packed I don't tend to stick around, being only 5 feet tall I don't feel so comfortable with GIANT people all around and if I'm not in front then I can't see a thing.  

Same court then has Rafa come out and he is hitting with Robredo. Didn't watch a second of that cause WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE. I was deprived of more Robredo and the people weren't even there to see him.  I was sad, but so so so so tired, long day of being in the sun after only 4 hours of sleep.  We went back to the court after the usual hour of practice they do figuring no one would be bothering Tommy and I could get a pic with him and we find out they are doing a two hour practice. 

 

So we headed back to hotel and now here I sit writing this and looking at the pictures we took.  ENJOY!

Tennis Afternoon One

I made it out to Indian Wells tonight.  I am here for the BNP Paribas Open, have come here for the past 6 or 7 years. All I did was drive here this afternoon, Leslie arrived in the morning and quickly went to the grounds.  Todays feature story is about Vince Spadea.  

Vindawg was doing a signing and they were eating so Leslie went up to him and said, "Hey Vindawg", he said in response to her RF hat, "You got the wrong hat on but I like you anyways" and went for a high five.  Two of her friends were there also and they got a picture.

Then Leslie said, "Hey will you do a mini rap for us?" and it went something like this:

I dont rap no more

Because my life is a bore

Tennis is ova 

Now I got no life 

Gotta get me a wife

Get me a range rova

And ride with sharapova

That's what she remembers from memory and that sounds pretty much like a Spadea rap to me.  

I don't know why they did this without getting film of it!

 

Hair and stainless steel cleaning.

Don't worry I am not using hair to clean stainless steel, I'm just talking about a few different things in one post.

First my hair. I have not used the flax seed recipe again because that nasty sticky-ness on my hair was pretty gross and I am pretty sure it did come from the flax seed wash. My next hair washing I just rinsed with apple cider vinegar(ACV) and after that the nastiness was gone. I think there was just something with the way it interacted with my scalp or something. My roots were not that bad it was at about ear level that just had a ton of goop on it. My hair also got kinda frizzy and HUGE again afterwards. I would brush it and it would be like when I was using conventional shampoo. It's too bad because I really did like the mixture and it was pretty simple and more appealing to me than ACV. I think I might make another batch and use it just on the length of my hair and not near my scalp or roots and see what it does and then use an ACV rinse. I do think the flakiness of my hair was from the peppermint, which was also in my flax seed wash so no more peppermint for my head.

Currently I am cooking up a batch of sugar "wax" to try out on my armpits. My hair grows at a ridiculous rate to have lovely hair free pits I would need to shave twice a day and every time I have been shaving lately I have gotten annoying and a bit painful ingrown hairs so I do not want to shave my pits anymore. I know "sugaring" them will hurt but it will be a burst of pain versus a few days of an annoying ingrown. I wish I could just not shave but I do care too much what people would think of hairy pits. I was first intrigued by sugaring thanks to Crunchy Chicken, and also found a few more places with it. What I am doing right now is boiling up one cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of water, and two tablespoons of lemon juice to hardball candy temp (250 F). I am having a bit of difficulties one because I just plain suck at cooking even if it is not food. I already had it boil over on me and two because the small amount I am making my candy thermometer doesn't actually immerse in the liquid. I don't want to make more than I will use especially since this is the first time I am trying it and I don't have much sugar on hand at the moment. So we will see how this goes.

Last night I was determined to clean my stainless steel coffee mug. I was not tasting any nastiness but it was awful to look at. The inside had all sorts of rings from levels of coffee where I apparently took breaks between drinking and the mug has a lid (that I never use) so coffee builds up on the part the rim snaps onto and it was just all around dingy. I had tried a lot, lemon peel with salt, vinegar, baking soda, in all sorts of combinations. It would get the same stuff that soap and sponge would get but still leave all the nasty stains from the coffee and tea. So I googled something like coffee stains in stainless steel mug and got a bunch of ideas. The first one I tried I did not think would work because it seemed too simple. Most were simple but included using products I did not want to use, bleach, oxy clean, other things I stopped using long ago, even though I still have all of them because I stopped right away not when the product was empty. So the first I tried was dishwasher detergent in cup with boiling water and let it sit. I don't currently have a working dishwasher but I do have a few different kinds of detergent under my cabinet. One store brand generic liquid detergent, one little sample pack of cascade that was in the dishwasher when we moved in and a box of Planet brand detergent. I used Planet of course and just tossed enough to coat the bottom and a bit of the sides of the mug and then poured in boiling water. I covered it with a random lid and went to bed in the morning I looked and the mug still had all the stains, I read that someone did this and when they woke up there was a brown film on the top of their mug because it had all come off overnight, I was a bit disappointed but I decided it might have loosened the stuff a little bit so I grab the toothbrush I keep at the sink for cleaning dishes and with barely any pressure all the stains started to come off. I probably could have dumped the soapy water and gotten all the stains off with just a quick rub of the sponge. I could not believe how clean the mug was. It was so shiny and spotless. I was amazed. I am currently trying this on a pot I use to make popcorn that has a bit of a stain from the oil. Just checked and the pot is already clean and shiny. I am going to have so much fun cleaning now. I get really excited about cleaning when I learn new and simple things. Now I just need to figure out how to get the rust stain out of my bathroom sink without using extremely harsh chemicals. I have tried all sorts with that too.

Flaxseed hair wash

Just got out of the shower from my third hair wash with the flaxseed wash I made, thought I would update. (I'm not going to put any links in this post so you will have to go to the one below to get any details, I'm being lazy)

I highly recommend using some sort of squirt bottle you can squirt the stuff onto your scalp. Especially if you have thick hair like I do, it is pretty hard to actually get it onto my scalp and not just have it slide down my hair.

My second wash wash not so bad, didn't have a squirt bottle yet so I wasted a lot of it again because I couldn't get it to stay on my scalp. I also didn't rinse very well apparently because my roots felt like they had a lot of heavy goop on them. Was not visually noticeable, but it just kinda felt like I had over done a leave-in or something. Not really a big issue with me since my hair is so thick and coarse, I kinda like when it is weighed down, but I was not able to run my fingers through it so it was kinda gross.

It does not feel like that now, although now that it is drying a bit and if I flip it and feel around it does kinda feel like it has a residue on it still. I wonder if this is more of a transition thing and not actually from the wash since it is not a form of soap or cleanser really like even baking soda was. It at this point is not enough for me to stop using it. I think I will give it a few more weeks at least to see if this is a transition, I did not go through a transistion when I switched to BS and ACV.

It does not feel like this in the actual shower, when I go to rinse my hair it feels great and soft and manageable, I actually say wow and I never talk in the shower or even think for that matter. As it dries is when I start to feel the weighing down. I would think that since it is only on my roots it might just be my scalp oil not the actual wash and especially since I did not feel it the first wash. I coat the ends of my hair just as much as the roots with the wash so I don't know why it would only feel weighed down there, it has to do with my natural oils. (Yes I am thinking "out loud") I made sure to rinse really really well this time and I don't really see how I could have not rinsed it well enough.

I am out of wash and am going to make a new batch. I think I will add lavendar and maybe some tea tree or something, or perhaps just do a tea tree rinse before hand, I am getting kinda flaky and I do go though spurts of it but it is much less than what I stated in previous post.

On a hair note but not related to washes I learned how to do two new "do's". They are ridiculously easy and gorgeous if you ask me. I learned rope braiding and hawser braids. I learned them from tutorials on youtube.com, ok I'll put in some links: Hair tutorials by torrinpaige.

I found her tutorials through the long hair community on livejournal.com.

Here are pics of my hair in these two styles.

Rope braids

Hawser braids

No poo and the rest of my hair care routine.

No poo is the way to go for me, but I have made a few changes. If you wanna know what I was doing check out my previous blog on it. Since I went no poo my hair has been growing like a weed. It is currently just about below hip length. I don't know if it is actually growing faster or if it is no longer all frizzy and kinked up on itself. After washing it now it looks like it use to after I would apply pounds of gunk and straighten it. But most importantly I can brush/comb my hair without it turning into a two foot wide ball of hair, even before oiling it, seriously it was really bad before I use to NEVER brush/comb my hair.

I did up the amount of ACV a bit, made it more conditioning. A few weeks ago I stopped using BS and just doing an ACV rinse. I did this mostly because I have hard water and soap scum was a bit of a problem. I also have been having problems with flakes, but I'm pretty sure that is due to my face soap or something because it is only around my hairline. It is not noticeable due to the fact that I have really thick hair and the color hides flakes amazingly well too. Or perhaps it is from the peppermint essential oil I had been adding since mid-December. I made a candy cane sugar scrub as gifts and had a lot of left over peppermint EO.

I looked around the The no 'poo method livejournal community, my intial go to source for info on going no poo, and came across this post and decided to give the flaxseed recipe a try. I boiled the flaxseed with cloves and infused that with chamomile and peppermint, it's basically what I had on hand. Here is what I ended up with:

Its consistency is like egg white so the container I have it in is not the greatest. I had issues with getting it out and staying on my scalp but will have better luck next time because I know what to expect.

I was also going to try lavander but the store was sold out last time I was there, I will probably try different things with subsequent batches. It was fine, nothing new to report versus BS/ACV. My hair seemed to dry a bit faster and it did seem to be a bit more bright in the red department but that just could have been an effect from being clean not the cloves, which is suppose to have red highlighting affects, it had been a while since I washed my hair. Here is a picture of it an hour or two after the flaxseed wash, pretty much looked like this after BS/ACV wash too.

I have my hair in two pony tails, the side on the right (my left) is flipped to try and show how the underside is a lot frizzier than the top side.

After I wash my hair I wrap it up loosely in a towel to get most of the excess moisture out and then comb it with a wide toothed comb and then air dry it. When it's mostly dry, not my roots, they take FOREVER to dry, I oil my hair with coconut oil. I got my oil at the local health food store and just bought food grade, they also had a tub in the beauty section but it was a lot more expensive for a lot smaller amount. Here is what I use:

I use a heaping 1/4 teaspoon for each side of my hair, I put it in two pony tails to oil it and only oil from hair band down. When I'm done I un-do the pony tails and use a tiny bit of oil on the hair that was above the bands, mostly to tame the little face framing fly aways that I am plagued with. Now that I say that I realize that this is the MAJOR difference in no 'poo'ing for me, the face framing fly aways were my main enemies and they are rarely on my mind these days. I don't even use headbands very often any more.

Here are more pictures of my hair in various stages of oiling.

Right (my left) side oiled and other side not oiled, yet.

A Close up of the oiled side, so shiny.

Both sides oiled.

My hair down after oiling and combing again.

The pictures really don't do justice to the effect that the oil has. The close up of the oiled bit is the best at showing how calm and great my hair looks after oiling. The oiling also works great as a detangler too. I have read that coconut oil can cause acne but my face has actually cleared up a lot since I went no 'poo but I did also change my skin care routine as well but at the least it is not affecting me that way.

I have to warn that this is probably not the ideal way to use oil for everyone. I know if my husband did this he would be a giant grease ball but he also is not a no 'pooer. There are somethings I just can't get him to do. A lot of people use the oil as a pre-wash conditioner. They put the oil on an hour or so before washing, some do it overnight, and they get similar results after they wash their hair of the oil. My hair has always been extremely dry and I have never had any oily hair issues. If your hair is thin and/or oily it might be too much to use coconut oil as a leave in. I don't want anyone to try this on my recommendation and end up with flattened down nasty greasy hair and curse me, although you can curse me anyways I'm use to it, hehe. My hair is a bit greasy seeming sometimes after oiling but after a few hours it soaks in and looks great till I wash again. I only wash twice a week at most and even between washings I do not get my hair wet like some no 'pooers do.

Also no 'poo doesn't work for everyone either. Even before no 'poo I would only wash my hair twice a week. I would have done it much less but it would start to smell. Since no 'poo my hair does not seem to grab on to smells as much as before. If you are the type that needs their hair washed everyday or it feels nasty to you and even perhaps looks nasty then it might just not work for you or you would go through such a drastic and long transition period that it just might not be worth it for you. When switching to no 'poo you are kinda re-training your body into taking care of it's self and not relying on something else to do it, kinda like kicking any bad habit, luckily this worked for me, unlike me trying to kick coffee, totally not worth it for me. So don't feel bad if you try and it doesn't work or if you don't even want to try.

Well that cured my boredom for a bit hope someone finds this useful, interesting, or whatever.

25 Random Things About Me

1. I'm so tired and see no end in sight
2. I love professional tennis
3. The Spanish men in tennis are probably the hottest group out there
4. I'm tired because the Australian Open is going on now
5. The time difference for above event makes me stay up to wee hours to watch live tennis
6. Apparently I'm going extinct because I'm a red head
7. Makes me feel bad for not breeding
8. OK not really but I'd hate for there to be no more red heads
9. I only shower twice a week usually
10. The majority of my week was pre-occupied with waiting and hoping for my cat to poop
11. I'm afraid of what might lurk in the dark, Vashta Nerada
12. The above is a Doctor Who reference, but still true, it just has a name now
13. The smell of bananas makes me gag
14. I collect my cats dropped whiskers
15. I make my own hair wash, no nasty chemical shampoo and conditioner for me
16. I almost exclusively use white vinegar for household cleaning
17. I live in organized chaos because I'm very organized but also very messy
18. I pick up animal poo with my bare hands almost everyday
19. I'm afraid of rodents, their teeth scare me
20. I once ran up a wall away from a groundhog, Liz saved me by picking him up
21. If I had more money I would be covered in tattoos
22. I worked with an Owl Monkey that looked at my eyeballs like he wanted to pop them out and eat them
23. I may be skinny but I am definitely not fit
24. My hair is almost below my ass
25. I have a 22 pound cat this is very picky about her food

Ipod cleaning

I wash and dried my Ipod the last time I did laundry, last weekend.  Did not realize until I was folding my laundry.  I felt a small hard rectangular object in a pocket in a pair of pants and I thought to myself, Oh crap I washed the remote to the Ipod dock, I took it out and realized no it's the actual Ipod.  I got really bummed and even more so when pressing the buttons did nothing.  I called my husband because a text just was not going to cut it for this.  This is a conversation that has to be done with actual voice so he can hear the sadness in me and I can hear the dis-belief that I actually did this in his, hehe.  

I call and tell him and we both kinda laugh but we also realize that I no longer have an Ipod and I use one a lot and so we are either going to have to buy a new one or he will give me his.  During the conversation I take out the cord for it and hook it up to my computer, OMG it comes on.  It still has all my songs on it, it still has total display function.  Now I have to test if it actually puts sound out, so onto the dock it goes, OMG it works, LISTEN LISTEN its Lynyrd Skynyrd!!! CAN YOU HEAR IT!!! HAHAHAHA!!!!  

So yeah it works but only when plugged into an energy source, so no using it with head phones or in the car anymore but I can't remember the last time I used earphones and it takes me 5 minutes to get to work and I do have a CD player and even a cassette player in my car.  At home I have docks for my Ipod at work I use my little dock that can be run by batteries or by AC so just no more battery for me, I have to plug it in, which is what I usually do anyways.  

I don't know why there is not any water damage, perhaps because I do large cold water loads in a front load washer or perhaps the washers don't actually work all that well, we have a laundry room at our complex so you never know.  I'm guesssing the power issues is from the dryer, the heat drained the battery.  I guess I'm lucky I use the medium setting on the dryer because the high setting probably would have totally killed the Ipod.  It is just too bad that Ipods have internal batteries that aren't worth changing like a cell phone.  

RIP Smoosh

Smoosh my green Iguana died last night. She had not been doing so well for the last few weeks, being quite lazy for her but of course still with her major attitude. Yesterday she didn't have her attitude and I knew it wouldn't be long. She was an old thing and had quite the interesting life. I believe I got her in 2000 or 2001 from Wild Wonders and they had had her since about 1997 if I remember correctly and I don't really know what happened to her previous to that. She was pretty much the same size from 1997 till now so she was not a super young Iguana but she didn't have the greatest life previous to that. She has no spines on her back, her dewlap is all messed up and she was a tiny girl for her age, and her mouth was all messed up probably from Metabolic Bone Disorder, lack of calcium and other vital vitamins (that's why we call her Smoosh, her smooshed up face), among other things. She had a pretty good life with me so I like to think the majority of her life was good and just a smaller bit of it was bad. Here are a few picture of her.

Work Benefits

The benefits I get at work are free reptiles. I've collected a few, a beautiful black and white California Kingsnake,






a vibrant Fire Skink,






and an angry Green Iguana.






I have also acquired other species from various places but not directly from work, but if I did not work with reptiles I am pretty sure I would not have any of these, not for not wanting but of all the animals I have right now I have only bought one and that turned into a big ordeal. Our bought Rose Hair Tarantula produced herself a big ol' egg sac a few weeks after we got her!! That even freaked me out!! I enjoy the company of all these creatures, well not really the actual company since I don't actually handle any of them but I do enjoy caring for them. I could have said no to any of them and all but the snake were me specifically asking for them.

Recently my husband has been the one coming home with things from work. He works at Directed Electronics, they also own Polk Audio. He bought me a sweet little ipod dock, miDock Portfolio Stiletto, last year and I use it at work where space is limited. Then he won an I-sonic in a raffle drawing when the company first acquired Polk. When Polk came out with their I-sonic 2 he was able to trade in his original. Then he won a Sirius Soloist at this years Christmas party and then employees were given a miDock Studio. At the Christmas party people were also given FM Voyagers, we had already bought one so now we have 3. I guess they are discontinuing this product so they were just trying to unload them. He has also won been given other things over the years and has sold them to friends for ridiculously low prices.

It is kind of ironic that we are the ones with these things. Not that I don't like them, I did go out and buy 2 of the things. I do like techie things, I keep up with the latest but I don't acquire them regularly. I have gaming consoles, I play World of Warcraft regularly but I do try and limit my intake of things especially in the past few years. It just hit me today as I was putting boxes of audio devices out of the way that we have all these things and didn't technically want the majority of them. I'm not complaining I am just wondering, is this normal or are we "lucky". What do I do with these things now. The I-sonic isn't really something I could sell, it has a few buggy issues but it's a device thing on a whole, we actually returned our first one because of it but this one does it too.

Which brings me to another thing I wanted to talk about. Vampires. I LOVE vampire stories, but I HATE vampire energy. I read an article the other day, Lowering the Cost of Play. It basically went through the top gaming consoles and how much power they consume and what hit me was how it's not so easy to really turn them off. I have experienced this with my Wii, when you press the power button to turn it off it goes into a semi-standby mode. It's power light turns from green to yellow. If you really want to turn it off you have to hold the power button for a few seconds and then the light turns red. Even then it is still drawing power just like almost everything else we own in this day and age. The Wii however is the console which uses the least amount of power by a whole hell of a lot.

In my home everything but my cable box and Tivo are on power strips that get turned off when they aren't in use. It works great, it is not that difficult to adjust to, just have to remember to turn the power strip on. It is a bit difficult for casual guests that come over and want to microwave something, they go over to it and push a million and one buttons and THEN ask why it's not working, it's not plugged in. The looks I have gotten are pretty funny.

This is where the problem arises for the I-sonic and I'm sure there are some other devices that would have these problems. The TV takes about 5 seconds to "warm" up before I can actually turn it on but it's not an issues at all. It is a vcr/dvd/tv combo so there is a lot of things that need to be engaged. The I-sonic on the other hand turns on right away and you can press two or three buttons but then it freezes for a few minutes sometimes. It is pretty annoying. It works long enough for me to turn it on put my ipod in it and change the source but I rarely can get to the ipod source and then a few minutes later it starts to function. If I do get it to the ipod it does play and I can listen to the ipod but I can't adjust the volume or skip or stop it through the I-sonic. I can pause the actual ipod but still no volume control. The worst part is that it actually plays and because I press the buttons a few times before I realize it's not working, when the "freeze" is over it changes source and volume or whatever I might have pressed. Quite annoying and that is why the I-sonic is now boxed up and probably won't come out for a while.

Another issue that I find intriguing and makes me not want to buy technology at all is the "Playstation War". Here is an article on it and I will let you read and think about it for yourself, Inside Africa's PlayStation War.

Cat Proof(ish) Christmas Tree

I can't have any plants in my home because my fat cat tries to eat them. Really sucks since my sister-in-laws family are florists and would supply me with an endless supply of beautiful bouquets year round. Sucks even more around Christmas time because there is no having any sort of tree.

A few years ago I got a small fake tree, one that has fiber optic lights built in, there are fiber optic "needles" among the fake plastic "pine needles" in the branches and they change color, looks kinda cool. Well we put it up and within a day the fat one had found her way to it. Isn't she just so cute chewing on plastic and fiber optic, can't be good for her.

We can't even have anything that looks like fake plants. Nothing resembling a plant. She loves to chew on the fake plants I have for my fish tank and/or reptile tanks. She is a weird one.

So I have given up on Christmas tree in my home. We don't do much for Christmas at our place anyways so it's not a big deal but it would be nice to have a bit of the season in our home.

I check my email the other day and Low Impact Living's newsletter is about a cardboard Christmas tree. I think that might be able to pretty much survive in my home. Granted my cats, both of them, are what we call cardboard vampires, thank you Jerry Cantrell. Let me explain, they love to chew on cardboard and it leaves puncture marks. Something Jerry Cantrell observed a cat do and thought of the term cardboard vampire and subsequently named a group he toured with. They did all covers it was great, but back to the Christmas tree. So I could bring that into my home and the bottom portion could be kindly "decorated" by my cats and I could decorate the top portion myself. It could probably even survive a few years before I would need a new one.