Christmas, hamsters, life

Chestnut, the Christmas Hamster


IMG_0889

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

We are introducing Chestnut, who joined our family 12-26-06. He looks like Spice in a way, yet different. This was Spice who passed away in February. Chestnut has more white on him. Right now we’re just trying to distract Ryan from the cage….

More Christmas posting soon – have to clean up right now! Look at Flickr pics though – Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Christmas Dinner at Gayle & Chuck’s (including pics by John and Brad), and the fuzzy ones are from my cell phone…..

Happy Christmas Week!

 

hamsters, transcription

memories…

User:dori
GOOD NEWS – I have work. 90 minutes of dictation to work on transcribing until Monday night. It’s due Tuesday morning. And the kids have their camp at MRDD center today (Colleen volunteers) so Rog and I are still going to lunch (we think) and then I’ll type about 3 hours. I’m going to type now, and tomorrow early morning, too. I hadn’t worked since Jan. 31 so I was getting nervous!  I have 2 clients so far (this one now is from 2000 and I hadn’t worked for them since then, because I’d gotten that full-time legal transcription job at the end of 2000 and gave up all the others).

BAD NEWS – we found our little Spice (hamster) Angel expired in the sump pump last night. She was missing from her cage in the middle of the night when I woke from the couch, and with Colleen gone at the friend’s overnight and Rog looking for jobs on the computer no one got her down earlier. I expect she escaped sometime Thursday night after one of us put her back in her cage. She was such a sweetie. We will miss her very much. I was crying and crying. After sleeping on the couch 9-1:30 a.m. I ended up being up until 3:30 after discovering her and then crying. Then I got up at 6 to start typing.

We still have a guinea pig (Reese) that my mom brought over to visit Colleen – she’s been her a few days. She’s sweet, but I don’t know her like my Houdini Spice — she ended up having 6 lives as that’s how many times she’d escaped without killing herself…..

must work now….hope these files are easy to 

eloping, hamsters, health, life

A little runaway

2020 – March of 2005 – Ryan was just over 3.  I hadn’t remembered when this happened but remember often that it DID happen.  Ryan had elopement as a severe symptom of Autism/ADHD, or whatever caused it, for many years.  He did not outgrow it until about Age 11.  Thank God he did outgrow it.  It was very very scary.

Good morning! I hope you all had a good Easter if you celebrate. We had a wonderful dinner, then had some interesting moments in the evening! I’ll describe them in a minute.

We made a delicious glazed ham with pineapple and brown sugar, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, biscuits, and peach pie. Devilled eggs too. We also drank a whole bottle of sprite. And we ate plenty of candy!

We also had 3 fun easter egg hunts. Ryan even found an egg!

So we stayed home all day. About 6 I had Colleen go outside and play with Ryan for a while. He did have a cough still all day but seemed to be feeling all right. They were playing ball and stuff.

Next thing I knew, almost simultaneously, Rog said, look at that little kid running down the sidewalk – wait, it’s Ryan! And I heard Colleen shouting RYAN! So I went running out and down the street and as soon as he saw me he laughed and started running into the street! Luckily there were no cars coming and I got the little stinker. I went home and saw that the gate was open. Colleen swore she tied it after she put her bike away like 5 hours earlier. I also think it was locked because Chris had been outside walking around and I kept checking from the window. So my hypothesis is that she didn’t tie it tight enough, and he just pushed on it enough to loosen the rope and get out. But I’ll never know…. Thank God he wasn’t hit by a car – gives me chills.

Then I just held him and after a while he felt like he was running a fever again. He fell asleep on my lap at 7:30 and I put him to bed (tried to give him Motrin but he wouldn’t take it — his temp was 101.5 so not horrible). This morning at 5:15 he got up and seemed warm still – I didn’t take the temp but just gave him the Motrin and we got up and went in the living room 45 minutes later and the temp was about 101 or so. So obviously it was higher before but I don’t know how much. He’s still coughing a lot. I called the dr. and he’s going in at 10:20 today. No one else is sick at this point.

So the next interesting thing to happen is when we were playing with spice and I was attaching her old wheel back in the new cage (it’s bigger and more suited to a Syrian hamster) I noticed a loose wire from the cage at the bottom. So Colleen and I taped it and put toilet paper all along the tape on the inside, but I think we may have to replace it again or maybe if possible solder the wire back in place? I was so glad she didn’t escape last night – I think she was too excited about having her old big blue wheel back!

 

hamsters

BACK HOME!

User:dori
(copied from Pet Hub) HAPPY DANCE!

I just found Spice! I was sitting here only 5-10 minutes after posting my last disappointed worried “giving up” post, and out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving by the front closet by our front door. It was Spice! I slowly got down on the floor after getting some food (luckily only about 3 feet away in my cabinet) and cupped my hands and gently called her (my heart was pounding!!)  Luckily we had hand-tamed her!! She came and got a honey drop and crawled in my hand, and then I cupped her and carried her to the cage. Her cage was half apart as we were going to just take it down soon!!! So I just set her in there, gave her more food and watched her drink some water.

WE ARE SO HAPPY! I woke my 10 year old daughter and told her. I put all the parts of the cage together but still keep checking it – I don’t trust it anymore.

I’m thinking of going to Walmart today and buying a huge rubbermaid bin to just set her whole cage down into for right now (she has a Crittertrail.) I can’t afford to buy a new cage right now. What do you guys think? Advice?

Ahhhh, so happy to have our girl home!!!!

 

hamsters

Missing Spice

Spice is still missing. We had some high hopes the first few nights as food was missing from our room’s food stash (we put a stash in each room) but now the last few days there’s nothing missing in any rooms and we haven’t heard anything in 2 days. We still have the cage and the bucket trap in our room but I’m wondering if tonight I’ll move it into the living room,where her cage always was, up on the filing cabinet. I could put on the floor next to the filing cabinet.

I haven’t seen any poop or pee paths, either, though, so am wondering if she indeed has vanished in thin air.

 

hamsters

Spice is gone.

Time: Saturday, 2/26/2005 9:49:41 PM (#66046)
User: dori

Spice is gone.

I don’t mean she died – she escaped! We are looking for her now, and we set a bucket trap of seed in the living room and 4 seeds in each room with the lights out and towels under the doors. I’ve been so sick and tired I didn’t clean, so now have lots of boxes of toys,etc., to look through for a little sleeping escapee —

I hope she didn’t die or get outside….

——————————————————————————–
Time: Sunday, 2/27/2005 5:46:38 AM (#66047)
User: dori

Comments: early a.m., my pets hub post —

haven’t found her yet, but in the middle of the night last night I thought I heard scratching and rustling in our bedroom. We brought the cage in there. And the sunflower seeds I’d left in every room, they were gone in our room.

Continue reading “Spice is gone.”