Shopping

So, Tene and I have been on a Paleo/Primal inspired diet for the last six months or so, and I thought I would talk about it.

I typically shop once a week, spending over $100 maybe every other week. The last time I went shopping (On Monday, July 4) I spent about $170, mainly on fruits, vegetables, and meat, between two stores - Trader Joe's and Safeway.

Last time I went to Trader Joe's I got green onions, six pounds of sweet potatoes (these will be gone within a week), garlic, plums, a 24 oz box of blueberries (already about half gone), mushrooms, bell peppers, bananas, 2 pounds strawberries, and nectarines (four of them, two are gone now). I love Trader Joe's. Everything there is organic, and it's a lot more affordable than, say, Whole Foods.

Then there's Safeway, where I got two dozen eggs (one dozen gone! I make waffles almost every morning, and for two waffles it takes four eggs ... so ... ), As well as eight pounds of frozen chicken breast, steak, asparagus, and Brussel's sprouts. I also got my non-Paleo/Primal food at Safeway: two types of hot cocoa, Nutella, a ton of olive oil, vanilla creamer, and vanilla extract.

In all, most of the food - especially the meat - will last us for a week and a half to two weeks, if not longer (the olive oil, for example, should last us a couple of months).

I think we eat pretty healthy around here. We try to eat mostly, if not completely, whole foods. It's not perfect, for example when I was sick over the last two weeks, and as a result I kind of let everything go. We ate out most days, usually at Chipotle (which isn't horrible, as far as "eating out" goes), and a lot of our fresh food went bad (which is another reason that my most recent shopping excursion cost so much). Also we obviously eat some not-as-healthy-as-could-be-foods (Nutella, hot cocoa, etc). But I think we do really well, over all.

Plants!

Not much has been happening in our lives lately, things have been pretty quiet.

But my plants are growing! So I figured I would share them with you!

Sweet peas!

This is my second try at sweet peas, the first batch blossomed a tiny bit and then died. The soil they were in was seriously lacking nutrients, and they were thin and really weak vines.

This batch, on the other hand, looks great! They're a good healthy green color, the stems are thick and they're growing well :)

Next on my list are my hanging pots.

Sweet peas and morning glory

I got these off of Amazon and I really like them. They're kind of chintzy, but they're cute, they were cheap, and I'm not too worried about them breaking or anything. I have more sweet peas growing in two of them (sweet peas grow fast, I never really noticed before) and morning glory in the other two. My thought, since those are both vine/climbing plants, is that they'll climb down, instead of up, making a cute vine-trail that spills out of the pots and such.

I'm really considering buying a second set of those pots, maybe hanging them on the other side of the balcony ...

After those is my poor basil plant

Mr Cecil Basil, the strongest of basil plants

I somehow ended up killing most of the basil plants I bought, no idea how. But I have one stem left. You can see the wilted, dead basil in there too. I have no idea how I ended up being a murderer of basil. I took care of all of the plants I got exactly the same, so I don't know how one branch of them survived while the others all died off.

Bellflowers

Then I have these bellflowers that I got from Trader Joe's on a whim. Most of the flowers have died off (I kept them in their original pot too long, I think, and they wilted - but they're coming back, see?) but they seem to be reinvigorated by a slightly larger pot with some fertilizer. Slowly they're becoming more green than dead, and they're blooming again too!

After the bellflowers come my three pots of mystery plants.

What's growing?

I bought some (horribly overpriced) seed bombs from Anthropologie a while ago, and I finally decided to plant them. I had bought two bags of the West Coast flowers (West Coast: includes cornflower, Shasta daisy, farewell-to-spring, garland chrysanthemum, Sweet William, mountain phlox and California poppy) and one of the herbs (Herbs: includes, basil, dill, cilantro, chives and parsely).

Who knows?

I pretty much just crumbled up the "bombs" of two of the bags (herbs and one of the West Coast bags) and layered them in the pots. I have no idea what'll come out of it, if anything (although I have to admit: I'm really hoping they bloom).

So mysterious!

They're all growing really well (to be expected, I suppose, that's part of the point of seed bombs, after all), and I have to admit that I'm really excited to see what sprouts up from them.



After those come my strawberries.

So delicious!

While we've had one strawberry make it all the way into being delicious, that's all we've achieved from these plants. Now they're more protected (there's metal mesh underneath a thin layer of soil. to keep the squirrels from digging them up), but I suspect it might take another season or two before we get any more strawberries. I guess they need to be more established or something.


Then there's the indoor plants.

Upstairs live these three - Ghosty, Heffalump, and Rose, or Graptopetalum paraguayense, Portulacaria afra, and ... a type of succulent I can't remember the name of at this point. These three are really cute and are in our bedroom window. They're doing a lot better than they were before I moved them.

Then there's Mr Tentacles, my octopus plant (Drosera capensis) who is doing really poorly. I can't figure out how to help him, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep it alive. I'm hoping to get a bigger container really soon, and maybe that will help.

Finally is the newest addition, Zebra. Zebra is a Hawthoria fasciata, and the first plant I actually did my research on. I only bought him once I knew he would survive in a partial shade/low light environment. He currently lives in the window by my computer desk.


Well, those are all of them. I really like taking care of my plants - I like having green things around, and I like keeping them alive.

Midna's Passing

On Monday night, around 10, I went to go check on the girls. Most came to greet me, and I noticed that Midna, usually one of the first to come say "hi", was nowhere to be seen. I started worrying, but not too much.

Then I found her hiding under the liner I made for the cage. She was extremely thin, mostly unresponsive, and seemed to be doing overall poorly. I tried to make her comfortable, and tried to get some water and food into her. I don't know how long she went without eating.

Two hours later, after getting some advice from some always helpful rat-based pet care forums (and doing personal reading and research on the Rat Health Guide) I ran to the grocery store to pick up some Ensure, Pedialyte, and baby food to try to coax Midna to get some sustenance into her. Unfortunately by the time I got home, it was too late, and Midna had passed away.

I did some research afterwards, and have come to the conclusion that her symptoms most closely match her having suffered congestive heart failure, leading to her death. I don't know exactly what happened - maybe she wasn't feeling quite as well, and she started taking in less food and water, compounding the problem, or perhaps she just simply wasted away in two days. I'll probably never know.

I knew when I rescued Midna, Freya, and Lilith that they would not be in this world long - and I knew they would likely be here for a shorter amount of time than any of my other girls. Just by virtue of their birth circumstances. But I had expected to have them for much longer than a sparse four months and some change.

Midna, my fastest rat, I will always remember you. I hope you will rest in peace, enjoying yourself among the vast running fields on the other side of the rainbow bridge.

Sweet New Home

Last night I finally finished sewing some hammocks for the new cage I got the girls. Which means that today I was able to get the cage all put together, and move them in. Of course I took pictures.

The top level of the cage

The lower level of the cage

Rats aren't exactly the smartest of creatures. Two water bottles, side by side, and they only use one. What gives?

Cage size comparisons.The small white one in the front was the first cage I ever got, which Min lived in for most of her life. Now it's the cage I use to separate the girls in the case of aggression or sickness. The shorter black cage is the cage they've been living in up until now. The new cage is the one on the left - it's so much bigger!

Blooms and Post

Here it is: April at last. Tene and I have been in California for a full year. The year has been slow, calm, and rejuvenating. It's been renewing, in a lot of ways, for both of us.

We've been in our new nest for a bit over two weeks now, and I'm just getting the final handful of boxes unpacked (where did we get so much stuff?!) and organized. I've also been buying a few new things - mostly organizational stuff so that I can keep my area(s) clear, but I also went to Ikea and picked up a few vases.

Can I just go on for a bit about how much I love Ikea? It's just wonderful, and I don't really understand the Ikea-hate I've noticed in random places on the internet. It has, so far, been my experience that - while some of their stuff isn't necessarily the best of the best - it's workable. And I don't feel bad if something breaks or gets a little damaged. After all - it's pretty simple to replace. And most of their stuff looks good, in a simple sort of way.

Anyway, I bought a couple of vases and immediately put them to use. I've fallen in love with Trader Joe's in the last year - although I don't go there very frequently (I can find produce for a lot cheaper, as well as meat) to purchase things, I often window shop to see their for-sale plants. A year ago I got my very first house plant from Trader Joe's. A pretty flower from South Africa (says the label) that had bright orange blooms.

I managed to kill it within a week.

I couldn't find the plant - Ornithogalum dubium (also known as a Sun Star) - again, and I ended up waiting for April to roll around again, hoping that TJs would offer the plant up for sale again.

And they did! I went to Trader Joe's for a bouquet for my new vases (which I also purchased), and I came home with another Sun Star. I hope to keep this one alive - I have a much better handle of the care and keeping of plants (like that the containers stores sell plants in are really crappy and shouldn't be considered permanent homes - regardless of how cute they are).

Of course, this year has its own challenges. Our new nest has windows, of course, but they all face north-west-ish. We get indirect and partial sun most of the day. The plants aren't the happiest with this arrangement - especially since the plants I have (sunflower, succulents, daisies ... ) really like the sun. We're thinking of getting some house plants that thrive on low-light, but I'm also hoping that I can keep some of the plants (the succulents and the , specifically. Also Cecil Basil II, the second full basil plant I've owned. Cecil Basil I died within a week of my bringing him home, and the seeds I got from Ikea never actually sprouted - so I guess Ikea is less than ideal when it comes to plants) at least happy enough that they don't die until we move again (be that in a year or five), and I can actually give them the sunlight they need.

As it is, I've been trying to put the plants all outside together in the morning before I leave, so that they can get the most out of even the partial sun. It's nice and fun to see them all in their pots lining our balcony, and makes me happy.

I've been writing more. Still nothing real serious, I'm not quite to that point yet, but I've been getting ideas out of my head and on to paper. I've also been reading a lot more. Finally putting my Kindle into good use. Up until about January, Tene had my Kindle, and I rarely thought about it (even though I had wanted one so bad - up until finally getting it for my birthday last year. Once I had it, I stopped caring). Now I'm finally realizing how useful it is. It fits perfectly in my purse, so I take it almost everywhere with me, and if I'm ever waiting in line I can simply pull it out, turn it on, and start reading. It only needs to be charged once a month (maybe twice) - even with heavy reading. It's great. The only complaint I have so far are the weird prices on Amazon for some books. An e-book should totally not cost more money than a paperback with shipping and handling. That's really dumb. On the other hand, I've been checking out some interesting indie fiction/self published works that have received good reviews and don't cost much.

And finally, after a purchasing mishap on my part (buying the wrong cage, derp), I got my long-awaited package in the mail! It's here at last! a Critter Nation cage for my girls. I'm so excited about this - it's hard to explain. On one hand, I'm excited because it will be so much more space for them; which is good because rats like having a lot of space, and this will hopefully improve their quality of life and make them happier and therefore healthier. On the other hand this cage will also be so much easier to clean. All I'll have to do is open the doors (which are the entire front of the cage), take out the toys and such (they'll remain the most difficult cleaning task), slide out the trays and change the bedding on them, then put everything back. No more tiny doors to work through! No more lifting off the cage top to get to the litter tray! And, since it should be easier to clean I'll hopefully clean it more often - which again will lead to healthier and happier ratties, and a healthier and happier me, too!