How cute are they?

This was at the end of a training session at the window one day last week. It's one of the rare times that they actually wanted to lie together after a session. Are they cute or what?! Celesto is on the left and Lindi is on the right.

Thank you Stephanie!!

Yeah!!! I got my American Mason Dixon Swap package from Stephanie today!!! It's WONDERFUL! Thank you!!! Here's what I got:




3 Balls of cotton yarn, 4 stamps and a cool ballband warshrag!!

Thank you! I can't wait to use them!

Knitting update

I just mailed my stuff to my swap partners. They went Priority Mail so they should be there sometime next week (early, I hope!). I'd post a picture of what I sent but that would ruin the surprise! I'll post pictures after my swapees recieve their gifts! :)

I also mailed off a snow globe to Phyllis G. for her daughter's birthday. If you are interested in helping her daughter (Thing One) add to her snow globe collection click here. I also (finally!!) mailed off the maned wolf painting for Tam. I'm sorry it took so long and I really hope it gets there in time! The painting is for a silent auction that Full Moon Farm is hosting. Full Moon Farm is the wolfdog sanctuary that Tam works at in N. Carolina.

I also recently joined another secret swap. What can I say? I'm addicted to them. It keeps me knitting because I'm always making something for someone. Anyways, this one is Secret Pal 9. There are a lot of participants and it should be lots of fun! It's a three month swap with a minimum of $60 total being spent on your swapee. (That's $60 total for the three months. That means you can spend $20 each month if you want!) If anyone is interested, go to the website and sign up. Sign ups are open until the end of Sept, with people being paired up by Oct 15.

All that was on top of volunteering at the clinic for 5 hours today. My usual shift is 4 hours but they were swamped and really needed me to stay and help for the extra hour. They ended up with more surgeries than expected. My understanding is several cats were dropped off for surgery that weren't actually scheduled to be there. It was hectic but fun. It's nice to be appreciated! :) Now if only they could get another autoclave machine. The one they have only holds 3 packs and it takes ~30 minutes to autoclave them. We only have 23 packs and usually have 40 surgeries a day. I make up the packs as soon as Dr Johnson is done using them. Unfortunately, the autoclave cannot keep up with me or Dr. Johnson. When I left, there were two packs that still needed to be washed and remade and probably 10-15 that still needed to be autoclaved.

By the end of the surgeries Dr Johnson had to use a pack that had just come out of the autoclave a few minutes before she needed it. It was a little toastly. Not dangerously so, just enough so that you knew it had been sterilized. So, if anyone has an autoclave machine just lying around gathering dust, please let me know! The clinic I volunteer at could really use it! (FYI - the clinic is a low cost spay/neuter clinic that does surgeries for rescues as well as local residents.) The website for the clinic is here.

That's it for now! I'm sure I'll have more to post later though! :)

9/11

Remember. That's all. Just remember.

Remember what happened 5 years ago today.
Remember all those who died in the attack - on planes, in buildings, on the ground.
Remember all those who died trying to save others.
Remember those who have died trying to prevent it happening again.
Remember those who are still fighting.
Remember the soldiers - whatever their branch - Marine Corps, Navy, Army, Coast Guard, Air Force.
Remember what they are fighting for.
Remember to thank them for putting their life on the line - past, current and future - for us.

And Remember the husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends, relatives and friends who support all of the men and women who are fighting for our freedom and the freedom of others. Thank them too.

And Remember.

Thank you to all the servicemen, firefighters, medics, police officers and everyone who is on the frontline helping others but especially thank you to my dad - a Marine and a veteran and to my mom - who supported him during his time in the service and in his jobs that followed - all while raising me. Thank you.


(Photo found at: http://www.musarium.com/stories/america-attacked/davidholloway/15.html)

Another friend, another job

I am apparently populating the zoo with my friends. Hmm...that doesn't sound quite right. I have lots of friends at the zoo but now, two of my friends who worked at other zoos are now working at mine! Kristin was just recently hired in the Natural Encounters department. She used to work at that Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin. Her first day is tomorrow. She'll attend New Employee Orientation and then start in Natural Encounters on Friday. She put in a bid on a house near me (which was accepted) and will soon be doing the inspection. She hopes to close by the end of the month. In the meantime, she'll stay with Beth. She'll be going back and forth between Lufkin to move her stuff and has a conference in there somewhere. Here's hoping for a smooth move and that everything goes well with the closing on the house! :)

More Lawn Stuff

I told my coworkers that I was finally getting around to prettying up my yards. One of them was sooo nice and brought in a couple of plants for me!! He brought me a Plumeria and a Night Blooming Cereus. The Plumeria, according to Wikipedia, is a relative to Oleandar (aka toxic) so will most likely end up in the front yard. The Night Blooming Cereus is a cactus plant that only blooms one time a year at (you guessed it!!) night. :) He said that both of them do better as potted plants so I will be picking up a couple of nice big pots for them. I'm so excited! :)

$2.32

Yep. That's what I paid for gas today. The total was $35.75 for 15 something gallons. (I was on 1/4 of a tank). This was at the Walmart by my house and is, by far, the lowest in the area. If I had had a Walmart credit card it would have been 3 cents less. It's so nice to see the gas prices going down. :) I wonder how long it will last. So, what have all of you been paying at the pump lately?

Lawn Makeover

Beth happens to love gardening. She does Bonsai as a hobby. So, she's agreed to help me with prettying up my front and back yards (and getting rid of some of the grass!). We went out to a couple of nurseries yesterday and I came back with this:
















Three Hibiscus plants.



They are going to go either here (my living room windows):

















or here (my bedroom windows):
















The goal is twofold. One is to provide some shade for those two rooms. The other is to have a browse plant that the Boo can have. I will probably end up getting a few more but we thought three was a good start. This will give us an idea on how many we do need.

We also found a really nice Red Maple at the nursery. However, we decided to wait until October to buy one. Planting time for them is Novemeber. It should be cooler then and Beth and I won't mind being out in the backyard digging a Really Big Hole. :)