May Craziness

this is the story of my knitting projects lately :( I need to start spinning again and give my needles some time to cool off.

The first two images are ones that have been circulating on social media sites that I deemed worthy to repost.  

 For Mother's day, we went out for breakfast and at the restaurant, I discovered that the cutlery is magnetic.  We spent the whole time after ordering our meals playing with them and seeing how many we could link together.

Mid month, the temperatures spiked and it was too hot to do anything else but enjoy daily walks to the playground with Anomantia.  Squirbo is definitely a toddler in every essence of the word.  She fights everything from diaper changes to eating and going to bed to getting in her car seat.  Getting dressed in the mornings is a challenge, I have given up fighting her clothing choice and just make sure she has extra clothes in a bag when we go out.

 Furia being incredibly cute sitting on the couch in the living room.  She loves watching Anomantia play and be silly.  Then she will try to mimic what she does. She is teething and a little more irritable than usual but she still so much fun when she is awake. 

Furia with her drooly lip curl. 

Anomantia trying out her new garden tools.  We decided that we would share the love of gardening with her now seeing as she loves planting things.  For now her favourite thing to plant is rocks (we gave her a bucket full of sand to plant her rocks). 

More dirt play.

It's a BUG! (sounds like bock)

This is the Squirbo's idea of being dressed to go out.  No PANTS!  Getting her to wear her boots is a new progression, she refused for quite awhile but finally she will wear them when we go out or even at home.  She is very stubborn when it comes to clothes, she has acquired a sense of style and when she refuses to wear something, she really isn't going to wear it.

Anomantia playing in the toy bin.

Squirbo and Dad at the restaurant for Dad's Birthday Dinner.

Dad and Girl cuddles after dinner.

Furia sporting her stylish Babiators.  I love her little sunglasses and thank you to The Simcoes for the gifts.  Anomantia loves her books and is constantly trying to steal Furia's "cool shades" as she calls them.

Now Introducing the newest members of the family:

This is Whitey our Albino Leopard Gecko.  At the moment, she has only a stump of a tail because she was so malnourished before she came to us, she dropped it because her body couldn't sustain it anymore.  I am happy to say that she has recovered, fattened up and her tail is coming back nicely.  Along with her, we have her sister (from the same hatching) we named Blindey (she is still not recovered from the neglect she suffered before we rescued her).  Blindey is blind and only has one eye the other eye was so damaged that it doesn't even open.  She is still really skinny and has to be hand fed to get her to eat.  I refer to her as the special needs leo.  And then there is Bitch Face (aka Fat Bastard) a full grown leopard gecko with awesome yellow and purple colouring that basically runs the tank.  She is an effective hunter and will attack the other Leos if they get within her hunting space.  I may have to separate them in the future but for now, they are sharing a 30gallon terrarium. 

This is the Costa Rican Striped Knee (also known as Zebra Striped Knee) Tarantula.  She hasn't really got a name yet, but out of all the species of Tarantulas, this one is known as the escape artist.  She is rather shy and skittish but is a very nice creature.

This is Sir our African Fat Tailed Gecko.  He has fattened up quite a bit since I took this photo, he is old and we will probably get only a few more years with him now that he is healthy again.

The lady has emerged.  This is our Theraphosa Spider.  We are still unsure if she is a T. Stirmi or T. Blondi but she is only a year old and still has lots of growing to do.  By the time she is four, she will be full grown.  Full size on a Theraphosa is between 10 and 12 inches in leg span. She has been hiding in her den for the past two weeks but emerged tonight bigger than she was.  We suspect a moult but she barricaded her den and we didn't see her at all until tonight after dinner, I was bringing dessert to Laurence in the office when I saw movement in the tank and there she was crawling out of the den.  It is a relief to have her surface again, she was stressed from the move and the tank cleaning, it could have been hazardous to her health to moult but we took all the precautions to help her shed the outter layer and grow.  She went in to the den with approximately a four inch leg span and emerged closer to a five inch leg span. 

Our month of May has been a real busy one and the plans for the summer are filling up fast.  For now we are enjoying our spring and getting our expanded garden growing.  We are enjoying the moments we have with our girls and creatures. 

End of April...Beginning of May!

 Last night I finally quit procrastinating and figured out what the nasty chemical smell at the top of our stairs... I needed light to figure out what might be the source, so I started by changing the bulb that had been not working for a few weeks.  This is what I found.  It was an 18Watt compact florescent bulb by GREENLITE.  The smell was absolutely toxic once I took the cover off the actual bulb.  The thing that bothers me the most is that there is no where to properly dispose of this bulb.  It has mercury in it and therefore cannot be just thrown into the garbage and Canada has yet to come up with proper disposal methods for them.  (Hence the reason the incandescent bulbs are still on the market after them saying they would be gone.) And to make matters worse... this bulb was only a year old (supposed to last 5 years).  There is however a loop hole to this whole compact florescent fiasco:  Keep your packaging and receipt and when it burns out, return it to the store where you bought it and get new ones (so long as it has not exceeded its life expectancy as usually posted on the packaging).  *Sorry for the environmental rant but it is really beyond concerning how toxic these things really are.

 Over the past few years, we have had several Jack Rabbits that like to frolic, eat, play in our front yard.  This year the little ones are out earlier than usual (we don't usually see them this young).  I know it is a crappy photo but that is dusk with an arm load full of baby and groceries on my way in the door for you.

 The latest update for Anomantia... she is a TODDLER and a 2 year old at once!  She hates having a diaper change, she refuses to use the toilet (most of the time), she doesn't want to wear pants and if she decides to put a shirt on, it has to be pink or purple or have an animal or a butterfly on it.  She is developing her own opinions and is very vocal about it.  She likes to be a part of everything and do everything herself (bring her cereal with milk on the side so she can pour it on herself).  She LOVES bubbles!  And playing in the bubbles in the sink.  The above photo, she was helping wash her bowls in the sink, while wearing the only disposable Pull-Up in the house and because she was refusing to wear anything else (I had to go out and Laurence was in the office... she was watching cartoons and playing on her tablet on the carpet and some days it just isn't worth the fight to get a diaper on her.  And other days it is just a huge fight).

 My Squirbo's hair is getting pretty long.  She is getting a hair cut soon as she is refusing to have it brushed or washed or anything, so there are days where it looks like she is growing dread locks (sp?) and I am not okay with that right now. 

 She is full of opinions and attitude too.

 The girls cuddling on the couch before bed the other night.  Anomantia barged in on Furia's nursing session and decided that she needed to be cuddled in on the couch too.  Furia wasn't too impressed but she thinks Anomantia's quirks are funny.  She smiles and laughs at everyone right now.

Our latest fun times are consisting of sidewalk chalking.  Anomantia love chalk and drawing on the walkway from the house to the garage.  It is lots of fun and the kids across the street love having her come and chalk their driveway with them too.  It is nice to see her finally interactively "playing" with other kids (even though they are older and younger... none within a year of her) but at least she isn't just sitting at home all day.  Anomantia has no desire to go out, she has everything she wants at home and to go out without advance warning her, ruins the entire day.  She stresses out about getting shoes on and getting out of the house.  I find I have to let her know what we are doing and what the end result will be so that I can try to get her out.  Some days it is more trouble than it is worth.

Sounds about right!