Turtle, cats and owls oh my

I joined a Sunday SAL and did some stitching on Sunday while having a Lord of the Rings movie Marathon.

Here is what I had done before



and what i got done. I will do more on this Sunday



Yes it is going to be big. This is Heaven and Earth Designs, Owl and the Pussycat.


This is my new baby turtle she or he is only a few months old, probably hatched in Late September to Mid October. The store I got him from got them back in Mid November. He is in the palm of my 12 year old son's hand. He is tiny for now; he won't ever grow huge like my other baby Turtle, but will grow to normal box turtle size.





This is a baby three toe Box turtle.

Name TBA at this point, have decided on what to call him yet.

Last weekend while having my LOTR movie marathon, my little blue kitten  Emmy laid stretched out on the couch beside me. It is when I see my cats like this, with fully bellies, warm and comfy, without a care in the world that I wish I could be a spoiled house pet too.



The back of the other cat that you see is my one of my Siamese SkippyJohn.

Rhett Butler once again taking a great picture, of all my cats Rhett is my most photogenic.



I will post the new turtles name when I figure out what it is and more updates on Owl and the Pussycat since it is part of my resolution for 2013.

New Year's Resolutions

I have always hated New Year's Resolutions, I never kept them. I now know why. I always made them to vague. I didn’t set reachable goals, something tangible. So I am doing things different this year. I set tangible goals.


1. To lose 75 or more lbs this year and not gain it back. That is about 1-1.5 lbs a week.
2. I would like to complete the building of 2 vivariums/terrariums for 2 different frog species I would like to get. My little Zoo Med front opening terrarium for Bumble Bee Dart frogs and my 55 Gallon for White’s tree frogs. When I say build, I mean the flooring, the substrate, the back wall, the water and lighting. So that they are ready to receive the animals I want for them.
3. Move Tiny into his permanent home from his baby home, he is currently in a 2 ½ gallon tank, and will move up to a 10 gallon like Howard is in.
4. Move Candy from her 10 gallon juvenile tank to her permanent 20 gallon long tank. This will be her 3rd and final tank; she started out in one of those plastic shoe box containers.
5. Finish stitching the cat designs I designed. I have 4 left to do.
6. Stitch 365 of those 10x10 grid squares of the pattern Owl and the Pussycat by Heaven and Earth Designs. That is 1 square a day. I may end up doing more. But I want to do at least 365 of them. There is over 2500 squares that need to be stitched and I have so far only done about 20-30 of them. I have a long way to go.
7. Finish Frog Pile. I started this earlier in 2012, or maybe it was late in 2011.
8. Stitch up the Dragon Dreams Christmyth series as ornaments.
9. Stitch up the 12 Days of Christmas by Dragon Dreams, there are 13 the 12th day has 2 drummer variations. Dragon a has the drum set type drums with the base, and snares and cymbals, etc… the one you typically see played by drummers in bands. The 2nd is a dragon playing the Bongos. Both are adorable. Now I have to rethink doing them up as a wall hanging set since there is an extra dragon. Maybe the extra dragon will just have to be a Christmas ornament for the tree.
10. To save $600 to have as an emergency fund with hopes that I never need it.
I think these are all things that I can do.

A quick update on the animals. December brought the lost of Red; he passed away in early December. I was sad to lose him; he had been on my desk at work since I returned from Utah in Oct 2011. With Red’s passing I moved his tanks mates Pip and Pop into an aquarium with 2 ghost shrimp. For a week while the tank was cycling it was just them. On Friday I added a pair of Dwarf Gouramis to the tank, since it is a small tank that is all that will go into this tank.

I will close with this picture of Howard and Tiny, I have wanted to get a picture of them side by side to show the size difference of the 2 frogs.

Home Sweet Home

Another busy weekend, but this one spent at home.


I am getting the house ready for Christmas eve, so that means cleaning. But I also built my Crested Gecko’s terrarium. I built the wall ages ago and I thought it would never stop smelling, it finally did. So today, I built in the ground; put in the plants, and the stitcks and Yoshi’s magnet hanging food dish. I found 2 great pieces of wood last night at the feed store. One is all wavy and the other is a piece of grape vine I think.

The finished tank



Yoshi in his new tank.



He is a little stressed so am I am leaving him alone right now. Letting him settle in. This is my first living tank, the plants will need care too. There are 2 vine plants, a sword plant, a bromeliad and 2 other plants I can’t identify. I have 4 other plants, 3 will go into this tank, my next project. My son’s spider will probably get the 4th plant, the 2nd pothos plant.



This one is a little bit smaller; I am thinking this one will house these guys. This is a Bumble Bee Dart Frog.



My other project today. My 10 gallon fish tank all set up. I brought my small tank home from work and have it setting on the kitchen counter for the last week. Finally got the tank all set up. My son picked the parts to go in this tank. I think he made some pretty good choices here. I didn’t get to use everything, the yellow flower ball didn’t fit, about 6 of the plants didn’t fit, Buddha had to stay out and the little Zen garden bridge was left out. I will add some fish next week, right now the occupants of this tank are Pip and Pop my African Dwarf frogs, and 2 little ghost shrimp, they are exploring their new space and décor.


Tomorrow I get to do my holiday baking. Sugar cookies and rum balls.

Santa Claws and Howard

This is my really large albino pacman frog. I named him Howard Hughes.








I was sad when my son was no longer little enough to still believe in Santa. His loss, I still believe in Santa, don’t you?



So am thrilled that I now have a 4 legged child I can take to go and see Santa Claws. (Yes I know I spelled it claws, not Claus). This morning I bathed Neo in the kitchen, (I use to do that with the boy when he was little) and gave him a good brushing and took him to go see Santa. He was a really good boy; he didn’t pee on Santa or bite him.






I got new stash in the mail today.

9 Mill Hill Bead kits
a 6 pattern Owl Christmas Ornament kit
a set of double eyed needles
a twist light
a thread organizer and
a cord making tool

Selena and Pacman

I gave in and my son got his Tarantula. She is a Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula, Gramastola rosea. He got a female rose hair. He named her Selena. For Selena Gomez. He first thought of calling her Hannah, but thought that people would think he was naming her Hannah Montana. I like either name they are pretty. So we have Selena the spider now living in our home.




I am not crazy about spiders at all, and this one is going to take some getting use to on my end. She is a large spider. She was a little cranky when I let her out of her little deli cup. I also found out she is able to climb glass. Yikes. I did some research on tarantulas to see what would be the best species for the boy to get. It came down to 2 species, the Chilean Rose Hair and the Pink Toe. Selena is in a real simple set up right now, i am going to build her a living vivarium with live pants. Semi moist ground cover and a cork round hide and a water dish.

I finally received my albino Pacman, after a year of searching, I got one. I was thrilled. Exactly what I wanted. An Albino Pacman frog. Mine is a Ceratophrys cranwelli (Cranwell's horned frog). Of coarse in this picture mine is really dirty, and frightened. I have him in a little quarantine tank away from my other frogs. I don’t want to take the chance with them. They are just fire bellies but they are my fire bellies and I like them.. I just need to figure out a name for him now. Sometimes I name them right away sometimes it is easy and other times I debate on a name for a few days before I figure what I think is the perfect name. I will let you know when I finally name him.

Mesa Reptile Expo

Yesterday was the Mesa Reptile Expo. I have been looking forward to it for weeks. I had set out looking for a Pacman frog. I wanted an Albino one. This is an Albino Pacman.




All anyone had was strawberry Pacman frogs. While a strawberry is very pretty, I didn’t want to pay $60 for a frog. I will wait and get the albino later.



This show was mostly snakes. Of course there was the usual fare of torts where there. I did see a lot of red foots and Sulcatas, there was an incredible amount of Aldabra, Herman’s and Greek torts too. Even a few Indian Star Torts. Which are really beautiful but very pricy. I think somehow they are worth it though, considering you are getting a pet that will outlive you.

The hot snakes it seems is once again the Ball Python, there was more Ball pythons than any other animal I saw. There were some beautiful colored BPS. A couple of my favorite the piebald. There were bubblebees, butter ghosts, pine stripes, jungles, lemon blast spider, lots of normals, cinnamon, carmel, Ivory, snow, even a few albinos.

The red tails where also a very common snake at the show. I saw an albino and one that looked like a candy candy, it was all red and white. It lacked the black and brown pigments. It was very pretty.

I was also amused to see a brown and white Rosy Boa, and a normal rosy boa, the only rosy boas I saw at the show. There were also a few Kenyan Sand Boas in a couple of morphs. And I saw my very first up close rough scaled sand boa.

One table was dedicated to nothing but Carpet Pythons. They are a neat looking snake. They are not smooth scaled like most pythons and boas are, they are rougher snaked more like a rattlesnake.

The boy held 2 snakes while there. He wanted to touch everything, but I told him from the beginning not to touch anything. I was serious about him not spreading something from one snake or lizard table display to another. Or worst yet bringing it home to my critters.

Reptiles can harbor diseases that may not affect the colony or species they are living in, but when you introduce them to a new colony, species or just bring it home to your collection it could make them very sick or even kill them. So I told the boy he was not allowed to touch anything and when he did, he had to use the hand sanitizer first. I do that when I take the animals to my son’s school too. So the kids don’t give my reptiles some weird disease.

So the boy and I wandered the whole show before decided what to buy.

We say 3 Gila Monsters



Mexican Beaded Lizard



The boy holding a Gopher snake



And a timber rattlesnake



Like I said I had set out for an albino Pacman frog. That is not what I came home with.

My fall back was going to be a tomato frog or a crested gecko. But it had to be a harlequin, or so I thought. The color I liked was the creamsicle fire. They had lots of beautiful harlequins. There where tigers, and high yellows, and Dalmatians too. All kinds of adorable little babies all the size of tootsie rolls candies.

I couldn’t find a tomato frog anywhere. I did see one pixie, which like the Pacman is a large species of frog. Lots of little dart frogs, and some really small but very cute red eye tree frogs and green tree frogs, all the size of Tootsie Roll candies too.

I left the reptile show with a grumpy, crested gecko that stole my heart when he went from him first owner’s hand to mine and then straight up my arm to my shoulder.

This is Yoshi a red tiger male. He isn’t a baby, he is full grown. I think he is a lovely creature. His skin feels like suede, and he is a nice orange color. He can soften his color a little and he looks beige when he does.

Fabulous Weekend

At midnight on Friday/Saturday we went over to Wal-Mart. Now the middle of the night is the only time I will go to Wal-Mart willingly. Shhh…. Don’t tell anybody, I still hate the store. I got my carpet shampooer there. The boy pushed it around the store to the cashier stands. I also let him pick out a new Skylander figure. There are about 100 Skylander figures, we combined have about 24 of them.

First things first of course. We had to do all of our chores. We had help though. I hired a cleaning service to tackle the stuff I couldn’t tackle due to my allergy to just about everything (that my skin comes in contact with that is). Two ladies cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. I knew it would take a while to do that. One spent about an 2 hours I the bathroom and half an hour in the living room and the other spent 2 and a half in the kitchen. But the kitchen and bathroom are clean again and that is all that matters. The boy and I did other things around the house, dusting, putting things away, vacuuming etc… we even got the back yard racked up and everything thrown away. The tree has been dropping leaves, we bagged up about 10 kitchen bags of leaves from the yard, plus branches and such that we tossed into totter directly so it wouldn’t tear up the bags. The house looks really good now. Oh and we got the carpet cleaned too. Love my new carpet shampooer. Works great.

The ladies left about 11:30 and I dragged the boy out of the house about noon. Made him go with me to a doll show at the church nearby. I was actually disappointed. I did a search for miniature show, and got the doll show. I did find a tiny little decoration to sit on the mantel of the fireplace I have for a room box I am building. The boy came away with a Christmas present for his Grandfather, and I added a dumb little McDonald’s Darth Vader to my Darth Vader Collection.

Then as promised I took the boy to Arizona Mills. I took him to the aquarium, Sealife at Arizona Mills. It is was nice little visit. There was the cutest little sea turtle and I got to see my all time favorite fish a Lion Fish. Beautiful creatures. Someday I would love to set up a huge tank, 180-200 gallons for 1 or a pair of lionfish. We both got a bag of gummies in the gift shop, mine was filled with gummy frogs and turtles and the boys with a little of everything.





We both got a bag of gummies in the gift shop, mine was filled with gummy frogs and turtles and the boys with a little of everything.

We took a stroll through Arizona Mills, and I let the boy go into Toys R Us and ride some weird space ship ride in the mall. I sat on the bench and watch him. It was a fun walk.

We took our 3DS systems with us. We each got 3 new tags from people in the mall. I told him we will have to go more often and walk the mall without 3DS systems.

For dinner a little early we went over to Joe’s Crab Shack. The boy had the KJ Steam pot and I had the Joe’s Classic Steam pot spiced up to the Sunset Grill. I let him talk me into dessert, we each had the crabby apply crumble. It was ok but not great. I am not a fan of apples. Especially the green ones. I also had a Poppin’ Rockin. It was fun, you add Pop Rocks to the drink, they shoot off in all different directions all at once. Makes a noise and a mess. But it really cool.

After that we went over and watch Wreck It Ralph, that movie was just too cute. I can’t wait for it to come out on DVD so I can watch it all the time. It highly recommend you go and see it.


Sunday we took Neo to the Groomers and did the grocery shopping and got the supplies for the reptiles to winterize them. Heating pads and such.

After Neo was done at the Groomers we headed over to another mall. Took the boy to what use to be Christown Mall, but is now Spectrum. The boy desperately needed some new shoes. His had a hole in the soul of it. He got a nice new pair that should last him a little while.

We saw another movie afterwards. Hotel Transylvania. Those of you that know me, know I am anti-Halloween. This was not a Halloween movie. Ok yes it was Dracula and monsters and stuff. But it wasn’t Halloween. I don’t think it was even October in the movie. I adored this movie.



It did not take me long to realize that Dracula was voiced by Adam Sandler. But he is my favorite actor so I knew his voice when I heard it, even with a Dracula accent. It took me a little longer to recognize Kevin James’ voice, by the way he played Frankenstein. David Spade is also a voice and so if Fran Dresher. I knew Fran from the Nanny, she sounds exactly the same and I still can’t tell you which one was David Spade. Oh and my son was delighted that Selena Gomez leant her voice to the character of Dracula’s daughter Mavis.

There is a ton of cool movies coming out that I would like to see.