The Realm

I hope everyone's having a merry Christmas. I see I haven't posted since mid July. It's not that stuff hasn't happened. A lot has happened and mostly annoying stuff with jerk neighbors. Not sure if I'll talk about that in this post or not. I still have to do the year in review for 2022 which was a bad year for sure though it's becoming a faint memory now. This one was like 2022's little bad brother. I'll have to do a back dated post for 2022 as it was a turning point year despite all the bad. I have also been dealing with the stress of getting rid of clutter in my life still. It was this year or the end of last year that I came to the realization that other than photos and letters I actually FINISHED with my mother's junk. I don't know when that happened but I found that I was blaming her for the mess when I really couldn't anymore. And the focus turned on getting rid of stuff that was ours now. Mostly mine. I don't' mess with Chris's things but I'll be happy to help him when he asks as I think after more than 7 years I am now a "master" level organizer. You know what they say about 10,000 hours doing anything and you're a master. Well if ten thousand hours is 1.14 years and I've been doing this rounding on 8 years yeah. Of course it's easier if you don't have stupid sentimental value getting in the way making things hard to let go of. I'm an INTJ but we put the few emotions we have into objects and possessions. But this year I'm finally seeing space in our house. The garage seems to be the main hub of the house. If it's in order the rest of the house mostly is. If it's a mess then everything's a mess. There is some shelf space in the garage finally. And there is floor space in the livingroom finally. I'm hoping once I reach my goal of what I consider finished I can show before and after. But I have finally cleared the big couch and a space on the small couch in the master bedroom. So that has been the other big stress factor in my life this year.

The dog has actually gotten better. She's currently 1 year and 10 months old. We're rounding on her second birthday fast which is also on our anniversary of Feb 4th. I love February for that and for Valentine's Day. Also Valentine's is the start of Spring for us. Chris got me two new budgies this year that I have yet to name. A regular olive green male and an English cobalt male. I'm hoping I can breed one of them to Emma 3 which is the last of my line. My line is majorly endangered. I NEED to get babies out of her. Does not matter the color of the dad or the babies right now. I can breed color mutations back into the line. Right now it just needs to be saved. Please pray about that. I have her with the blue English male. She doesn't seem interested.

I'm going to have to get into a flamewar soon probably on youtube. A guy I'm subscribed to has stolen my ending phrase that I always use for my videos. I should have confronted sooner but well all of the above was happening. Three times I've brought it up and for the first time he's given me the silent treatment. Ok, this means war, once I have time to make a post here and on youtube with all my evidence. So that should be forth coming. You guys know how I operate. Sit back and watch the fun.

The chickens are doing well. I had so much drama this year because I hatched my own birds for the first time. Incubating and using a mother hen was a new experience for me. Seems all these things need posts of their own.

And spiritually because things have been so bad with how evil the world is becoming Chris and I have dove even deeper into God's Word. We're studying a lot more. Our three main pastors are Pastor Gene Kim, Robert Breaker and the late Dr Ruckman. I wish I could have met Ruckman. Watching him kind of reminds me of when I used to go to Christian school. I got the basic milk foundation that kept me out of trouble when I went out into the real world and to university and work. But we didn't start to learn meat studies until 2018. So thankful for that. Things like prophecy, the King James Bible, history of Bible believers and other things that make sense in current events. The more I grow in truth the less and less tolerance I have for wickedness and the stupidity of this world.

Ok so that's it for now. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.
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( For Your Reading Pleasure )
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Hey guys I'm still here. I think about LJ and posting everyday. I wish I could keep up with it like I used to. I used to post pretty much on a daily basis. Even youtube is hard for me to keep up with. This is one of those good news bad news posts though. I think I said in my previous entry that things were slowly starting to look better and I hoped I was out of the storm. Things got better in September. Nope, I guess I was passing through the eye. I also said in July this year needed something amazing in the last half to get a passing grade of so so. That didn't happen either. The hardest things have been the stupid dog first and then the slow going on the chicken coop. Close runners up are the cross bill chicken that is going to be a baby bird for 10 years if I can keep up with the feedings. I don't know if I can keep her alive for her full life span. All that food, time and materials are so hard on me. I have to tube feed her. And then is the accidental rooster. All of this is tons of extra work and stress I did not need.

Ok here's some good news. I've been dreading Olive turning 9 months. That's when dogs are supposed to be at their worst. It's the time people get rid of dogs. But Olive has always been a month a head of schedule it seems. Perhaps I've gone through the worst already. It sure has sucked. The aggression to other dogs and animals is the worst thing you can have and not fair to a first time dog owner. I think the only thing worse is aggression towards people. Thank goodness she loves people. But I'm still always nervous of taking her out because she could go after someone's dog while walking. But anyway she's a people dog for sure. I'm so glad.

So we took her to Thanksgiving at Chris's parents. We were a bit worried about her jumping on them out of happy stupid puppy energy though. I do not want her knocking down seniors. But thankfully I think she knows this now. I told them that if she did try to jump on them to just give her a good solid knee to the chest. This doesn't hurt her but she'll get the message. Luckily that was never the case. I put a cute turkey bandana on her so she was all nicely "dressed" for the holiday. Mom fed her tons of food even though we brought a meal for Olive. Dad played ball with her in the backyard and then after dinner we all had a nice chat in the living room. Olive became the 50lbs lap dog trying to get into the arm chairs with everyone where she did not fit. It was funny. She loved the couch because it was under a window and she could "guard" the house that way. We don't let her on our couches often so she was so happy there. She's also great in the car. We just put her in the back of the jeep and clip her to the roll bar.



In fact here's the photo I took of her on the way there. Also she's finally house broken now other than one weird thing. She will pee or poop on concrete. So she will pee on a patio or a garage. It recently happened to me but I was there to get on her case. I think this is because she was badly raised by the breeders in a shed and she grew up on concrete. She had the bad elbows when we got her and missing hair. It's all grown back now thank goodness. She also doesn't understand that you don't rip up beds and sometimes prefers to sleep on a hard ground. That can't be good. I wish I could give her a nice cooshy bed and pillows. She also rips her blankets which bugs me so much as I want to buy her nice things. It's been hard teaching her to be a house dog. Anyway she was almost a perfect dog at mom and dad's. At our house she puts her mouth on everything and we have to stop and chase her from grabbing paper and tissues. So glad she didn't do that there. Because of that I've been giving her more out of pen time which is what I want. I want a normal dog that will be with me in the house but I don't have to worry about constantly when they are out of sight. IF they are gone there's a 90% chance they're doing something wrong. And we're far from trusting her alone loose in our house. Of course our house is full of temptations that can't be gotten rid of. Mostly birds dropping food on the floor constantly, feathers, and just stuff everywhere that's ours.

I also hate how much I talk about her now. I tell Chris she's actually the lowest ranking pet as far as I'm concerned. Even the frogs out rank her. She can move up the ranks by obeying and behaving for me. But this is a testament of how much time she steals from me and my other pets. I miss Minion the budgie so much. And Emma 3.0.

Ok so the other bad thing that happened two days ago. First let me post another photo.



Our chicken coop is really coming along. In this photo we have the first wall of the run up. Notice the pink thing. That's Olive's tongue. I had not idea she was liking the new wall til I looked at this pic. HA ha. Notice she only has one ear. That's another stress factor for me and her. I have been posting the ear and it just won't stand. It stands for a little (four days was the most) then falls over. I HATE that. Dobermans should have floppy ears. They look terrible. They look like hounds. I know it's hard to get her ears to stand since they aren't cropped but I think it's possible. The right one is perfect so the left one needs to follow suit. I think it can because it has been standing. I've been feeding her shark cartilage and bully sticks to try to get the ear to harden up. As well as to continue to post which is a literal wrestling match every three days. I always win. "Pinned ja again!"

Ok so in the photo notice the long 20 foot purple leash she wears. We put that on her because her recall or her COME command sucks. She comes when she feels like it. That does not fly with me. If she doesn't come I go get her every time no matter how long it takes until she realizes resistance if futile. Look up Beckmans Dog Training video called The Go Get Method. So the leash is there for that and also for playing fetch because she's great at chasing and catching but won't return the ball. So we step on the leash and reel her in like a fish. Well two days ago we were outside and she ran past me. I was wearing long boots. I usually do for protection in the yard from the leash. My dog can run 30 mph. But some how this time the leash got wrapped around the back part of my knee and she gave me a terrible rope burn. It's been super painful. Just cleaning it with water caused a lot of very loud screaming on my part. Stupid dog! I lost a big patch of skin and have a big gash along the back of the left knee. I definitely need prayers for recovery. Despite all these things after Thanksgiving Olive does seem like a better dog. A slight improvement. Mostly not so energetic in the house.

Now something other than dogs though a lot of this is indirectly dog influenced. Ok so earlier in the year when I got sick for like two months because we did not know I had kidney stones, a lot of my plants and pets suffered. Chris was great taking care of everything for me. Unfortunately I lost my whole collection of isopods and springtails. I think I had like six species. I've been in the process of trying to recoup my losses. I placed three orders with different sellers on Ebay. I think Ebay is the way to go for the more common types. This way you aren't paying tons of money on shipping like you would from websites. I wish I could order from the sites as they have some unique stuff but for only a few or if I want a cheap 12 dollar species it's not worth it that they want to ship it for 40 dollars. That does not benefit me at all. And they won't do normal priority mail shipping. They do 2 day or over night. I think that should be a choice not forced. If I chose to risk priority mail that's my choice and my fault if the bugs die or get lost. Well that's kinda what happened with my first two orders though. I ordered from a seller in Virginia and a seller in California. The tracking on neither order ever changed. It just said label created. The expected date came and went and no bugs. I at first though the item hadn't been scanned by the mail service. Sometimes track doesn't update til you get it and then all the cities it goes through show up at once. Annoying but that wasn't the case this time. So I wrote them.

Virginia guy was great. He said he didn't know there was a problem and went to his post office and asked what was wrong. That's customer service. Turns out the under paid postage for adding a heat pack. No bugs died. He rehydrated them and I got them. All were great. California guy was a bit more flippant. "Oh they probably got lost. I'll just send another batch." Well ok, but sucks he didn't even look into it as they are rare living things. I also wasn't too happy when I got those because even though I knew I was getting juveniles these were super teeny tiny. I might never see them til they get big months later. And then I will worry if they are even alive or escaped or what? I did get two extras but they could have been a bit bigger. I have NEVER bought juveniles this small. They were the Japanese line of magic potion isopods btw. Today I am waiting on an ispod I have been wanting forever. Porcellio spatulatus. They are a drab ugly grey color but it's not the colors that make these so cool. I think these guys look just like trilobites. It's crazy how they look. They are out for delivery today. These are the most difficult species I will have in my collection. Not sure if they are super hard but compared to other I've had I know these are harder as they are from dry environments I think from Spain. So wish me luck I can keep them alive and get them to breed.

Lastly my chickens have started to lay eggs. Another stress factor for me as I wanted them in the new coop before egg laying started. We still have a long way to go before the coop is ready.



Lastly enjoy this photo of our pretty lights on the fence. And I finally got a set of spiral trees. I have been wanting these for years. I LOVE them. On and the white dot and the green dot on the fence are my LED glass snowman and glass tree.
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So what have I been up to other than dog stuff. Lots of good things have happened too. Well yesterday was very productive. Chris and I worked in the yard and tore down the old rotten fence along the very back. He exposed the beautiful new white fence the back yard neighbor installed on 95% of that side. I LOVE it. I've been using the reciprocating saw to get rid of bushes, small stumps and baby trees that have popped up everywhere. I saw a video that showed how to do that if you can't dig it out. My goodness. Once I learned about this I wish I had known about it years ago as I've had the answer in my own garage for years to fix these problem. I dont' care if I have to crawl on my hands and knees to clean up our big yard I will. I already have started to anyway. BTW if you want to see the video here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yesFy3odAk

We saved the poles that were still good and placed about 4 or 5 I think along the short side of our house to make a temporary fence for our future chickens. Like all things we can't afford to do things all at once and with the price of wood this may take a few weeks. Chris's mom was awesome that on mother's day she gave US (the kids) gift cards to help buy hardware (like hinges) and wood for our fence and gate. That's so awesome. So we got the first struts on the first panel. I'm trying to salvage the best pickets. And not have to buy new ones. We should only have to buy the hinges (which we did with the gift cards) and 2x4's for the struts on each panel.



Actually here is a pic of the new fence from the longest view. That wood part on the left is all that remains. You can see some of the panels Chris knocked down. My largest lotuses in the distance in their tubs. And in the lower left are a bunch of plumgago bushes I have been removing from the roots with the saw like in the video. We have tons of work to do. We're nerds so we don't have a lot of strength and endurance. Chris also doesn't have time. He gets two days off and usually he's tired. The heat gets to him so he can only work around a couple of hours a day when he's here. This is why it takes so long for anything to get done. Two hours a week and for me what every tiny minutes add up to over the weak as I work by chipping away at different projects at a time. Oh and about the heat. I tell Chris not to work during the day. Really the window for healthy work before the heat starts is from sunrise to around 9am and then 6pm to sunset. I hope this fence can get done with time to spare before the chickens arrive next month as we need to start on the coop. Anyway that wood section I plan to paint white so it kinda looks like the rest of the fence.



So this is the small fence we're building. Hoping to put a gate in the center. Once this is sealed it will be safe to have outdoor pets. It's a shame we're losing half the yard though. Again we're not strong enough or have time to make a fence in the front. If money was no object my I would ideally hire a fence company to do a complete front fence with sliding gate so the cars can get in. Anyway, I'm planning to paint this once it's built since the pickets will be so ugly and old.

Ok so I have also gotten back into my carnivorous plants. I have been ordering different breeds of flytraps. Flytraps are like dogs. There is only one species but many MANY breeds or cultivars. I have been making little bogs and reworking the existing ones that got over grown.



Here are some of the flytraps and Sarracenias. I think the reason some of these sell so well is the names they are given. So far I have

Wild type or typical from Lowes
B52
DC XL
King Henry
Dente
Red Dragon Akai Ryu
WIP Slim Snapper
Alien

I've got a few more coming on the way like Low Giant, Big Mouth, Wip long snapper and Jaws. Yeah these names you just want to buy all the cool ones. There are hundreds of cultivars. Maybe I can get into breeding flytraps and name my own. We need a Scary Fear out there. Definitely needs to be one that has long thin stems and long teeth. I don't think it's possible but ideally it would be cool to have a dark red with green mouth. The green mouth on a red form is what I don't think is possible.

And another thing I've been up to is I got a journal to write out the book of Romans. You guys know I love journaling. This LJ was started in 2004 I think. And I have been keeping journals since around 1984 actually.



So here's my new journal. I'm loving journaling again and hopefully this will help me remember where things are in this book better. Writing God's word daily is actually a kingly thing to do. Even if you just write one verse or a part of a verse daily and toss the paper away it's a good thing to do. Here is where the passage is for kings to write the word before Israel even had a king. God knew the people would screw up and ask for a king.

Deuteronomy 17:18 And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:

20 That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.

What blessings come just from writing and thinking about the word that was studied. These two other verse reinforce this for me.

Proverbes 3:1 My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:

2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:

I love the last part. Write them on the table of thine heart. In other words memorize them.

2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

I've always been good about remembering the main gist of verses and almost quoting them right. What's hard for me is memorizing the book and chapters they are from. Chris and I have always used the funny quotes "Somewhere in the back." or "Somewhere in the front." Well that no longer flies with me. If I can at least get the right book I'll be happy. But I need to memorize everything so I'm working on that. The Bible is a sword and you're not a good soldier if you don't know how to use the sword properly.

Lastly a fun pic. Chris took this on one of his jobs.



Chris has a heat gun to measure temperatures on his job. I always tell him that birds are the hottest animals. A long time ago we made a video where we filmed Hot Budgies. But I think that was a UV gun. This is a thermal gun. So yes this chicken was blazing hot in the "cold" surroundings. I would have so much nerdy fun playing with these guns. The average bird has a body temp of 107F and you see this was in the morning when it was a cold 73.
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Well so far looks like this place hasn't blown up just yet. Speaking of holding on until the bitter end...My cell phone is dying. You guys know I have no love for cell phones but I've had my Galaxy S7 for five years now. Chris got his J7 at the same time I got mine in Dec 2016. His started having problems with power and staying on as well as memory and not being able to receive photos in text. He held out as long as he could but as is our way to be "In your face world!" He got another J7 ha ha. And I knew the day would come when my S7 would kick the bucket. My problem has been my battery is getting worse an worse. And you can't just open my phone and add a new one. Of course they wouldn't do something easy or convenient like that. It has been holding less and less charge and become harder to charge up. Today looks like it's my last day with it perhaps. It dropped to 4%. I charged it for an hour and it wa 19% and I watched it go 18, 17, 16 all the way to 4%. I'm afraid to turn it off and unplug it. It's literally on a life line. I was afraid to get the memory card out as it might not turn back on. I was able to remove my photos at least through the cable which has never worked well for me. I'm now in the unpleasant process of trying to back up photos from text conversations. Some like with Chris, Joker and ACtipton I have tons of photos. And it's not easy. I have to download them to the internal storage then transfer them to my pc. I wish I could save texts. I'd have backed up those ages ago. You guys know I archive everything. But phones aren't real computers. They suck and don't make things easy as they should be. I'm afraid my phone will die before I back up all the pics. So that's what my day entails today. And yes I'm already looking through ebay for a good new unlocked S7 in white or silver. Wish me luck. I never liked that mine was black.

On a happier note. Here is a photo of my puppy when I met her at 4 weeks old.



She's five weeks today. I hope the breeder will send me updated pics, but she'll have to send them to Chris's phone.
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Ok so I think the subject is a good one as lots of things are getting closer. Before I go on, is anyone else getting the stupid banner up top to confirm email? I hate clicking stuff and don't trust most pop ups but it won't go away. Want to make sure it's legit. Click stuff is how you get viruses. Reminds me of when DA was doing this a few years back. I did ignore if for quite a long time. Very annoying. Maybe they're doing it because so many people lost their accounts when they made that change where you were forced to change passwords in a certain time. A lot of people did not have access to their old emails from decades ago and lost their LJs. They are still sitting there but they can't get into them. It's sad how LJ used to be the best (it still is but is dropping fast) and now they are going down hill to sucksville.

Anyway, I was worried because my Amazon order I placed this past week took several days to go through. Luckily it finally did and all my dog stuff came in yesterday. I got the play pen, some chew toys and blankets. Oh and an awesome new dremel tool. Ah, this brings back memories of when I was a macaw owner and had my awesome blue and gold named Joel. I miss him so much. He was amazing. I used to have a mobile bird grooming business in the 90s. I would advertise in the local paper then go to people's homes and clip wings, nails and beaks. For the big parrots the dremel was essential. You have to be careful with bird claws as they have a blood vessel. Some birds have black nails and you can't see the blood through it like those that have white. They are harder to clip cause of that. From what I've seen it's the same with dogs and their nails. I'm off topic now. So almost everything came in. Luckily I got the most expensive difficult stuff first which makes the last stuff on the list seem easy. Since I'm naming my dog Olive, I want a tag that has olives on it. I got a collar but they were green olives. She's going to be a black olive. I found a nice tag that will match the collar but you know me, I want everything customized. I'm wondering if I can recolor the olives to be black and if the seller would print the new art I will provide? I hope so. If not the green will be fine. Since the collar was a premade ribbon I can't recolor those to be black. Eh, but the green would show better against a black dog. Not sure. I need to think about that.

Speaking of puppies. I was looking around and found a breeder in Dallas. My goodness that would be a haul. I don't think I can do though, that is save up in time. I have enough for a deposit, but I can't meet the balance in time. Even in the 8 weeks it takes for a puppy to wean and be sellable. I want cropped ears so that makes things more expensive. Add a few hundred dollars on top of the price. If I can't go get the puppy myself add several hundred more dollars for a plane trip to Tampa. The bad thing about that is I don't get to meet the puppies and pick one. I may still contact them to ask questions but looks like this particular one wont' happen. A shame because I love how they care for the puppies, how well raised they are and just everything else is great. Oh that they aren't show dogs. I'm so sick of all the breeders being show dog people, making their dogs stupid expensive, having dumb points in the contract that I refuse to agree to and possibly getting rejected as a buyer. Now I have done my share of rejecting customers when I sell birds but those were people that I knew would not care for my babies as pets. Years ago I had a jerk keep pestering me in person to sell him a bird because his son let the last one go (not one of mine thank goodness) and they needed a new one. Are you kidding me? No. What's to stop his irresponsible kid from just doing it again? I really need to tell that story sometime. The guy was a scum bag but he never was able to pull a fast one on me. You guys know how I am in online flamewars. Well guess what, unlike the majority of keyboard warriors in the internet what you see is what you get. I'm the same in real life as I am online so he got the What For from me. Ha, I'm off topic again. The channel Doberman Planet made a funny video about jerk breeders actually where John plays all the parts and argues with himself. If any one wants to see it here's the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUFtRe6OZ8

I have finished the frog tank. Perhaps it's good the first one failed because this one is WAY better.



I'm a big fan of the 3d brick "wallpaper". I used light blue panels on the previous tank. This one I got these coral or peach colored ones. They were listed as pink but that's not pink. It's light orange. You can't see it here but the rocks are fish tank rocks in different shades of blue. I made an egg crate false bottom so it's not as heavy as the last one, will hold water better and uses fewer rocks. Since becoming a frog owner I have also now become a fan of small bromeliads. These are all Neoregelia genus hybrids. The one on the left is called Chiquita Linda, the one in the middle is Fireball and the one of the left is More Pepper Please. All these remain small which is perfect for terrariums. As far as size I love Chiquita Linda. One of the smallest. I think that's as big as they get. The other two might get bigger. I think the fireball might be close to full size but will begin to make pups. The more pepper is my fave for color in this tank. The plants on the side are fitonia white vein and pink vien. There's a peperomia cubanensis hiding in the left corner. You cant see it. The middle is a cutting of neon philodendron. That one I picked because the green will contrast the orange but it gets orange stems. And several types of moss that I hope in time will grow in and make a carpet. At that point leaf litter won't be necessary. I will let this sit for a week, maybe two so the frogs don't uproot everything and eat all the springtails and isopods which is what happened last time. Oh springtails are tropical pinks and isopods are porcellio scaber orange. I'm hoping with the leaves, the bark, wood and plants they'll have places to hide. I love that round thing on the right but it keeps growing hairy white mold. I don't want to get rid of it but not sure what to do.



I didn't take step by step photos. I did take videos but forgot to do still photos. This is the only one and it shows how I made the false bottom. I hope to make a video showing the progress at some point. I'm so behind on my videos. Ok that's it for now.
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I'm trying to work on a new Minion Talking video. I really hate making those but they need to be made. They are worth all the work once done. Also Minion makes it so much harder by only talking inside his cage. And when I film him, he either stops talking and preens on purpose to act like he's not doing anything. OR he turns his back so you can't see him talking or goes behind a toy and talks back there. Grrr little pest. I love him though. I wish I could find a nice open spot where I could film him clearly. I think that time he talked on the perch was a fluke as he has refused to do that since on the custom mic stand I made him. He keeps jumping off. BTW, "No jumping." Is something I say a lot and he's learned it. Ha ha.

Yesterday was a nice day off. It was the first day that was warmer. I felt a lot better and even my dart frogs all came out at once which is super rare. I sent that pic to most everyone on text. The types of frogs I keep are happy at room temp. If we're comfortable they're comfortable. So they are a good indicator of my health too. I felt quite bad during the cold days and had no engery. Fibro always plays up when it's about to get cold. My frogs were cold and my singer Pavarotii would try to sing but sounded like a car that couldn't start. Later on no frogs were visible. It was like the tank had become an abandoned ghost town. But yesterday and today the frogs are out and happy. I feel a lot better too. But it's a FL winter so we get two days to enjoy it then temps begin to drop again. I don't know how low they'll go but I really hope no more frosts. At least Feb is a short month and it's the last super cold one.

Speaking of Feb, tomorrow will be our 26th year anniversary. I watched UP again the other day. My gosh it's so Chris and I. I have another post here where I explain why that film is so personal to us. It's like they wrote the story of our life. We are so much alike we even had extremely similar childhoods. Here is that post if you guys want to see it.
https://thagirion.livejournal.com/845827.html
Something is wrong with my tag "up". I had to make a new one called "up pixar". I wonder if just the work "up" is some code that messes up the posts. Rather annoying. I don't know if I'll remember the new one next time I talk about this movie. Anyway, everyone knows Jurassic Park is my fave movie. But UP is definitely a close 2nd. My two all time fave movies. And if I get my dog eventually I'll be able to relate even more.

Oh I found an awesome video the other day. Someone made a video where they made a "talking collar" for a real life Dug the dog from Up. It's awesome.


https://youtu.be/e_C5zsPmuXE

We got some chores done yesterday too. We went and did our taxes. Always boring but worth it for the return. Though we had a problem so we're waiting to hear back from our accountant. Don't worry nothing serious. Often times there are small mistakes and things need to be revised more than once. We worked on our garage and got the second row of mylar up for insulation in there. It's looking very cool and space age.

Today I need to call our local bird store. I hope they got in the new budgie apartment. I hope the price hasn't gone up too much. I really need a second one to keep the parrolets away from the budgies and eventually probably a 4th as a breeding stand and baby bird hold. Ok, I need to go check on that now so I'll stop here.
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I got an email from LJ today, it was in my spam so that tells you a lot, that they're making changes. I so hate that the original owner stupidly sold such a great site to the Russians. Not sure what these new changes are but there was something about access. I decided to test it by transferring my latest posts to my Dreamwidth back up. As I thought it did not work. I don't know if this has to do with the new changes here and if LJ is not blocking access from DW. I hope DW can find a way around this like last time. If you don't have a dreamwidth account get one NOW. It may not be possible for you to back up LJ. I've always been aware of this possibility. I hope I can get some external drives and back up all my entries to that. That will be an annoying chore but needs to be done. Even if you can't back up to DW you should have one in case this place goes under or we "foreigners" all get the axe. I really think there's only a handful of us English speakers left. The last and final holdouts on a sinking ship. Well I'm staying here till the ship has sunk. As I type this it says "Switch to Up To Date Version." Ha, like that will make me switch. I'm also the only person on LJ using the very original Excolibur OS and I won't change until I am forced to. Unlike the mindless masses out there I do not go for the "newest" "Updated" or "latest" anything. I am loyal and will stick to the end to what I like and what works. So Ahab goes down with the ship.

Alright now that I'm done yelling at "the storm" let's make a post. I'm doing well saving up for my dog. I'm so excited and can't wait. But still have a long ways to go. I'm still in the process of buying the needs to have on hand before getting the puppy. I got a huge dog crate. That's the biggest expense so far. I need the play pen fence next. My fruit flies had contamination and I lost some colonies. That sucks and will put a dent in my savings as now I have to order more fly culture supplies. Hopefully I won't have to track down actual flies as I just found two nice starter cultures of wingless and hydei flies.

Birds and plants are doing good. I have switched some apartment budgies around. Minion now lives with Emma and Whitey is on top floor. I don't know if this will work out either. Emmas less mean than Whitey but Minion seems stressed with her in the cage too. This sucks but Minion seems to only want to be a pet. This next pay check I may have to spend it on finding another budgie aparment (cage stand). Hope that will be ok.

Chris and I got Cobra Kai season 3. We watched it all in two days. We LOVED it. Season 4 is only on netflix unfortunately and you guys know we will never join that again. So it's an annoying wait til they come out on DVD or if we can find someone help us get the eps before would be nice. I'll have to talk about this series in depth some other post. It probably needs a post all to itself.

So this is the first post of the year for me.
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( 2021 Year In Review )
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It's Christmas Eve. I know some countries celebrate the 24th. I don't know why, makes no sense but yeah anyway.

I got a gift yesterday that surprised me. Someone sent a gift for my birds. Please tell me if it was you. There was no note from the sender. Just a thank you from the manufacturer Lafabers. I didn't order it so Minion and Co have secret admirerers or something. Here is a video I made.




https://youtu.be/YdFl7XbMjOg

Wingo, is feather biting and mutilating himself. Sigh, I thought we were making progress. I've never had a feather picking bird. But I've bought all my birds as babies or raised them myself so I've never had a used, abused bird. He chewed his tumor and it was bleeding. I'm mad at him. I'm going to have to find some type of bitter spray once it heals to help with this picking. I did order some protein powder called Feather Fast that has good reviews. It goes on the food and helps with molting.
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