When it rains, it comes a hurricane...

Today has been one for the books. It was literally one thing after the other today. What is it about March? Why is this such a cursed month for us? Remember last March, we lost David and had several other things go wrong as well.

Today started horribly. I woke up to Chelsea lying on the cage floor, dying. She was on her side, laboring and just... dying. I wrapped her up in a towel so that I could hold her, but that made her very uneasy and nervous -- she even tried to jump out of the towel. I just laid her back down in her cage with the towel under and around her.

Today is also the day we were having Melissa put down. Her inoperable mammary tumors are just too big anymore, she can barely walk. The decision to have Chelsea put down as well was an easy one. Thank God my aunt took them for us, I don't know what we would have done if she wouldn't have. I know it's cowardly, but I just can't face it.

After we picked the puppies up at the vet, we got our two joeys neutered, Neville and Evan. I was a nervous wreck, for obvious reasons, so that made the neuters even worse for me. It didn't help that Evan was scared to death and overly grooming himself. I just knew he was going to tear something lose. It took him over an hour to finally stop and sleep.

When we got home, we fed the gliders and were taking the dishes in the glider room when LaVaughn heard a joey crying. We have 4 on the way, but NONE are ready to be OOP yet, so you can imagine my surprise. LaVaughn looked up at Chloe and Boone's cage and saw their tiny little leu boy clinging to the cage bars, crying. She quickly grabbed him and warmed him up in her hands.

I immediately noticed how skinny he looked, so I got our wonky gram scale out and weighed him. He weighed in at a jaw dropping 8 grams! It didn't take us long to make the decision to put Chloe in a cage by herself and monitor how she was doing with him and how well he was eating. It'll also give us the opportunity to feed her some extra protein for a few days.

This joey just doesn't look good. He's so tiny and sickly looking.

On top of all this, we're puppy sitting our aunt's puppies. They need to be watched closely overnight because of their incision. Max is being terrible and trying to nip at himself, so they really can't be left alone.

At the end of the day, I'm left with shattered nerves, a terrible headache, and a terrible loss in my heart. I just want the day to be over so I can put some of this crap behind me.

-Megan

Just look at how depressed she is.

I can't even imagine.

Not that it matters, but here's some of the awesome fruit we got for the gliders.

Savoy Truffle...

I don't really feel like blogging today, but I'm going to. Things are still really sensitive when it comes to Sally. I almost made it through an entire day yesterday without crying, but I knew it was inevitable. It's still so hard to believe she's gone. Her sister, Emilie, is taking it really hard. I know you all probably think I'm crazy, but it's true. She's just lying around and looks lost. Melissa and Chelsea are both consoling her, or so it seems. They lay their heads on her and just stay close.

It's extremely hard on me to be without Sally, but imagine those 3. They've spent their entire lives with her, every day since birth basically. I can't imagine what they feel and it breaks my heart that I can't ease their pain and suffering.

Speaking of suffering, poor Pip is having tooth issues again. He's lost a significant amount of weight and can't eat well at all. His teeth are extremely sensitive to cold foods -- we've all been there before. We put him in a cage by himself for a couple days to see just how much he's eating. The first day of giving him his regular food was a big eye opener -- he didn't eat much at all! The next day I cut his food up extremely small in hopes of him being able to eat it easier. After doing that and cleaning his teeth every other day, he finally started to eat a LOT! Like almost everything.

He still needed to be checked by the vet to make sure everything was okay. Since he's been drooling a lot lately and Sadie's fur has been greasy, we decided to just get fecals while we were there as well. Luckily everything is doing well. She acknowledged that he was having some teeth issues and said that there's a good chance there's irritation that may be causing an underlying infection, so she put him on antibiotics and sent us on our way.

If this doesn't help, we'll take him back for an ex-ray and maybe a blood smear.

Love & Peace

-Megan

Some pictures of the drive home. These are of Saint Francois river on C highway:

Just a sample of how cold it's been.

I like this one.

Now for the DELICIOUS cake that LaVaghn made. It's an Almond Joy cake and yes, it's just as delicious as it looks:

Here's our fancy Almond Joy cake.

I think it turned out quite pretty.

I like this picture. I think it turned out quite nice. Cake photography has never been my thing, though.

To the devil with false modesty...

I don't have too much to share today, mainly I wanted to unload some pictures so that I don't get backed up. They're nothing special, just a couple of Milla and Zoe.

We had all kinds of storms roll through yesterday, several warnings, and one very scared pup! Milla is a super friendly dog, but she's a loner by nature. Her behavior makes a complete turn around when it's storming -- or just when she's scared in general. There's not a thing you can do to pry her from our sides. 

We dinned up in our nook off of the kitchen last night and Milla stayed right by our side. It's so funny to see such a big dog so scared of something as harmless as thunder. It really brings out the puppy in her.

Today, on the other hand, has been much nicer. Definitely a lot colder, but it's been docile. So much so that someone decided to fish in the lake behind our house. Yeah, imagine my surprise walking in the glider room and seeing a family of 3 fishing. It was a sight to say the least! 

We still haven't seen or heard anything pertaining to Lucy. She's just gone. It's so lonely outside anymore, even though there are still 3 cats out there. Aside from Bart with his extreme vocals, Lucy was the loud one. Constantly squeaking out little meows whenever she wanted food, or just to be loved on. I miss her so.

I don't know why, but I am dreading work tomorrow. It's not as though I'm not there on a weekly basis, but since I took off a couple days this week, it seems like I've been gone for an eternity! I work a grueling 1-10 tomorrow. Standing for 9 plus hours on your feet is not something for the weak, I have to say. Maybe, by some miracle, I'll get out early. Highly unlikely, but you never know.

I guess I'll leave it at that. Hope you enjoy the pictures below...

Love & Peace

-Megan

Our big girl Milla with wide, frightened eyes:

The bone is clearly doing nothing for her, even though she ate about 4.

"Is it ever going to stop storming, mom?"

Zoe loves nothing more than to look out the large, floor to ceiling windows in the glider room:

Such a pretty girl, such a different reflection.

Look at those beautiful cat eyes!

"Hey, who the heck are those people up there?"

Now some gorgeous photos of the rat finks:

"Move Sally, it's my turn!"

"No, Melissa, it's mine!"

Chelsea really has no idea what's going on.

Neither does Emilie.

"I'm just going to sit over here and look pretty."

The end.

A sigh of relief...

I'm finally able to breathe easy today. I got that phone call that I was waiting on and it was nothing but good news on the other end. You have no idea how stressed and worried I've been the past day. Seriously one of the worst days for me. I mean, it could have been worse, it can always be worse, but it was still bad.

Today has been cleaning day for us. We started with some laundry, vacuuming, and other normal things like that. Then we moved on to our rat cage, which was long overdue for a nice, deep cleaning. While I was taking care of the cage and everything in it, LaVaughn watched all the ratties and even gave them a bath!

Bathing isn't something we do on a weekly basis, or even a monthly basis, just something we do on occasion when we feel the need. The girls all get to play in the water for a little while first, then they get cleaned and put into a nice, comfy place to dry off. Where they're showered with treats for being such good girls, of course.

Since they've chewed literally every cage set item we've ever given them, we decided to pass down one of the gliders cage sets. It was a smaller cage set for our hospital cage that we don't use anymore, so we thought the ratties could use it. It's all pink, so it works perfectly. I'm sure they'll have most of it chewed up by morning, but that's just something you have to get used to when it comes to being a rat owner.

I need to talk joeys for a minute. As I'm sure most of you know by now, Violet is about to pop! I've got occasional looks at each joey and both appear to be little boys. One is already colored up, he appears to be a WFB. The other one is the mystery joeys, he looks to be all white at the moment, which would make him a leucistic. If so, that means both Cas and Violet proved out their hets and are now both 100% leu hets. Only time will tell on him. Their potential joeys could be: WFB, Mosaic, Platinum, or Leu. SO many options!

I'm so excited to see what these little ones look like. They're going to be gorgeous, no matter what color they are. Violet is just one of the prettiest gliders out there, so I know her babies are going to be stunning. Same with Cas, they're just a pretty pair.

I know I was too bummed to talk about our new knives yesterday, so I'll go ahead and talk about them now. We ordered these awesome zombie apocalypse twin swords and they are awesome!! We got them on ebay for, I hate to say it... $28.50. I know that's an insane amount to pay, but they're awesome and I wish we would have bought more, because you can't find them any cheaper than that anywhere! The guy we bought them from is all sold out too. Sad face...

We also got our stilettos in the mail Wed, which are equally awesome. LaVaughn got a skull one and I got a green spiderweb one. They're both pretty awesome, you can see for yourself below.

Well, I guess that's all for now. I need to go get all my crap ready for work tomorrow. I have a glorious 9 hour shift waiting on me. Good times. Until then...

Love & Peace

-Megan

My Stiletto Knife:

LaVaughn's Stiletto Knife:

Our Zombie Apocalypse Twin Sword Set:

A better look at the fleece we ordered:

Violet's little boys:

And of course, some of Violet:

Prettiest sugar glider face ever!!

Our nice, clean rat cage:

Then add rats...

Sally would rather be out with us.

I think Chelsea would too.

Emilie has the cutest of cute dumbo rat faces!

Melissa isn't doing too bad for herself in they way of cuteness.