pervy dirty boys

my apartment is pretty small, not like it's the cubboard under the stairs or anything, but cozy. i have a nice little livingroom, small kitchen, 3/4 bath, & my bedroom. ok, my bedroom is GINORMOUS, but i don't let the ferrets run in there. basically when i'm home & awake they get to run around the rest of the joint & play & get out all of their ferret energy. I have litter boxes through out my place so they don't have to look far for a bathroom. & i hope frantically that they'll use their box instead of a random patch of floor. ferrets are strong willed critters & will do what they please.

so when i take a shower, because i take super quick showers, as in only about ten minutes, i leave the bathroom door open & let the boys run. i have a litter box in the bathroom too for them, so i don't want to lock them out of a bathroom & wind up putting a clean foot in a ferret poopie. so i was taking a shower last week & all of a sudden i feel something on my foot, i look down & sundance is playing in the shower. which was surprising, but my response was "rock on, the ferret likes to play in water." well cassidy did the same thing the next day. & i knew i was going to bathe them this past sunday so i didn't mind at all. i figured if they like playing in water bathtime will be a breeze. so i wasn't about to kick them out of the shower if it was fun for them.

yeah, not so much. i went to bathe them on sunday & you would've thought i was trying to torture them. it was kind of like giving a cat a bath, for anyone who has had that particular pleasure. they aren't as big as cats, only being 2.9 lbs (sun) & 3.5 lbs (cass), but they still struggled. & they have sharpish little nails. but luckily they didn't bite. i gave sundance his bath first while cassidy napped in their cage. i tried to towel dry him & get him all fluffed up & he wasn't having any of it. basically i was barely able to get a smidgeon of the excess water off of him before sundance was out of my arms & running around my apartment rolling on the carpet & rubbing himself up against any piece of fabric he could find. since cassidy is my mellow cuddly boy i was sort of hoping that maybe things would be easier with him. not in the least. he threw the same kind of fit his brother did.
luckily ferrets only need to be bathed every 2-4 weeks just depending on what they get into & how clean you keep their cage. so it's not a really horrendous task, but it will take some effort. i also kind of figured after the bath incident they would be very wary of my shower & they'd stay out of it because they'd associate it with baths. nope. monday morning while i was showering for work they both trapsed in & out of the shower. cass & sun are totally pervy little boys. they won't let me bathe them without throwing a temper tantrum, but they'll run in & wrestle while i take my shower.
ferrets. go figure. *grins* but i do like being a ferret mom. they're good boys...according to the vet they are the most angelic ferrets she's ever met. they didn't struggle at all during their exam or getting their distemper & rabies shots! my boyfriend says the same thing, my ferrets are really well behaved. he actually wants me to bring my ferrets over to play with his. i'm afraid they'll pick up bad habbits. his roommate thinks they'll just learn how to be ferrets.

the rats are still doing well. they don't like to be picked up or cuddled. they're content to just chill in their cage & let me spoil them rotten with treats. they LOVE the strawberry mini wheats. well, let's face it, they love ANY kind of treats.

weight update

i need to bitch about my weight more often on here! i wrote the blog complaining that i couldn't break through to under 180 & then it happened, the very next day! yesterday morning when i stepped on the scale it read 179.4. i even hopped off it, then hopped back on to see it again (& take a picture because i really AM that much of a geek!) it was last week or so that i had stepped on the scale saw 179 something & then got the camera & then i was back up into 180.X, yeah, that was a kick in the teeth. & then i bounced all over the low 180's for days. but the 179.4 stuck. even though i got on & off the scale five times. that's not an exaggeration, i really did that just to see if it would stay in the 179 range.
i do have the photographic proof that i was in the 179's for a while. & this morning i was still in the 179 range, 179.8, but still under 180! i thought i would have more of an epiphany or a wow moment once i got to under 180. the last time i weighed 180 i was 14 years old, probably a few inches shorter than i am now, & definitely wearing bigger clothes. i now weigh less than i did in 8th grade. how can that not make me cry or mist up even a little? maybe because i'm still in this unreal phase. it all seems to be some kind of dream, or some kind of odd reality that i still have not adjusted to yet.

i'm about 18 or 19 pounds away from losing half of my body weight since my highest weight. i had really wanted to do it all on my own. but i'm not ashamed of the fact that i needed help. i did as much as i really could before i reached out. some of my friends have asked me if i wished i would've done this back in 2007 when i first started the process. & i'm really glad that i did wait until 2008. i wasn't ready back in the spring/summer of 2007 when i went in for my surgical consult. but this time i was ready.

& it's exciting to be in this new virgin weight territory. kind of a mini adventure. i'm excited to see where this all goes. it's also weird because even though my back has been hurting me really really badly for over a week now, suddenly monday evening/tuesday morning it was like i got a sudden burst of energy. i don't feel the same tiredness & lethargy that i had experienced ever since my surgery on february 11th. almost like i was covered in a blanket & someone lifted it off me. maybe because it's now been over five months since my surgery. maybe because i've lost such a considerable amount of weight. maybe a combination of all of them & something else. but it's very cool.

seriously? you did what to your hair?

i got my hair done tonight. i got it cut, a cute short new style, bangs, layers, texturizing...the whole nine yards. & then i got it dyed. first black. then i got parts of it bleached out. & then the bleached out parts dyed pink. *nods* yup. it took me a while to convince my stylist to do it. she was unsure how it would look & didn't want me to hate her. she works with me & used to be my supervisor before my promotion. she actually used to do hair for a living until a shoulder problem made her retire & join the insurance game. when rl (my stylist) was worried about how my hair would turn out i told her "hair grows, piercings heal, tattoos are forever." which pretty much sums it all up.

she does an awesome job with all my cuts. she always brings out the best in my curls & i love my hair each time she does it. she has dyed it before, but just like a burgundy color, never anything this dramatic. she never did anything this dramatic ever. but she took a risk & i promised her no matter how it turned out i'd love it. & i do love it. it's not exactly what i had pictured in my head, but i really really love it. she did an awesome job.

i was actually talking about this with someone at work who just couldn't believe that i really planned on dying my hair black & pink. my role as a qa is kind of a leadership role, but my supervisor & my manager don't seem to have any trouble with me expressing myself. then again, i'm also the girl that tends to wear cargo pants lately & has perfected the punk/business casual combo. it's just part of what makes me unique & so well loved...although evidently not humble *winks* besides, i pretty much stay well confined to my cube-sweet-cube when i'm working anyway. helps me stay out of trouble.

one of my coworkers recently got her nose pierced & she was asking me if i thought it wouldn't be well received because of our corporate work environment, to which i responded "dude, you're asking the chick with a nose ring what she thinks. i don't think it matters one bit." i actually am far from finished with my own body modification. i'm pretty sure my next tattoo will be on my left forearm, another tarot card is what i'm thinking. i'm also contemplating a lip ring to compliment my nose ring. on occasion it's been mentioned in my presence that i may want to stop getting tattoos & that i may want to lay off the piercings. that it's not professional & it will hinder my climb up the corporate ladder. but that's not really my dream, it's more my sister's dream.

i also really resent the implication that my tattoos, piercings, or hair color have anything at all to do with my intelligence,work ethic, & ability to do a fabulous job. i can understand & respect the fact that some people may see it as a phase & not the right "image" to project if i want to be taken seriously. however, i have proven myself, just as i am, to be a valuable asset to the company: friendly, bright, hardworking, responsible, & ambitious. maybe if i was just walking in off the street i could understand how my outside appearance may put some people off, but i'm kind of an established entity around my work.

& then there's the family factor. i'll be going to see my mom's family on the 27th for a family get together. i've always been kind of the black sheep of my mom's family. i've been the outsider. the artist. i have the most piercings. the most hours of ink. & definitely don't follow anyone else's rules for living. i'm fairly sure when my dad sees my hair he's going to say "birdie, why did you do such a damn dumb thing?" my brother is going to shake his head & walk away. & my mom is probably going to ask me why i do these things to myself...although, unlike a piercing or a tattoo she can't ask me why i feel compelled to mutilate my body.

i did take some pics when i got home. i have one of me & then one with each of my fuzzies (aka ferrets). sundance wears the blue collar & cassidy wears the green collar. i'm not sure if those are the ones that they each wore with their previous owner, of if she even had them assigned, but that's what i'm doing. (fuzzy side note: i may have to get an extra collar or two to keep around the apartment. they really are little escape artists & each night at least one of them gets out of their collar through playing around). for some reason my hair looks more reddish/orangish in these pictures, but in person the pink comes out. & i've already gotten several compliments on it tonight from melissa & her friends. (melissa is one of the girls that lives in the upstairs of the house that i rent. she & her twin sister live with their mom, who actually owns the house i rent. i know, slight aside, but my apartment is totally pimp. i love this place!)

beckah's boys

my boys & i have settled into a nice little routine. when i get home i take cassidy & sundance out of their cage so they can get their play time. leif & anthony still get their treats every morning when i wake up & every evening when i come home. all in all they are pretty spoiled little mammals. it's also really interesting how vastly different their personalities are from each other.

my ratties for instance. anthony LOVES his exercise wheel. he's in it most every night, sometimes in the morning when i wake up. he never gets going fast enough to spin himself all the way around like a hamster will do, but he goes at a decent clip for a rat. leif on the other hand i haven't seen in there once. he'll walk through it, & nap in their little cuddle cup next to it, but he won't run in it. & even though the giant rat ball is the exact same theory as an exercise wheel, anthony just won't use it when i put him in it. they also aren't much for being pulled out of their cage for cuddling. they like being pet while in their, they love their treats, but they don't really like cuddling. leif is also my little cage biter. it's a good thing their cage has metal bars because he loves to chew on the bars. it's a nerve grating sound, but as long as he's not hurting himself i'm not going to make a big deal out of it.

leif is also my little piglet. i'll give him a yogurt bite & he'll stuff it in his mouth & beg for another one. or he'll run it down to the bottom of the cage & then speed back up to the top to try to get a second one out of me. he's not so fond of the apple bites, but anthony loves them! they both love popcorn though, which is really neat. i bought them some treats that are mini corn on the cob ears & i can microwave them & the dried corn will pop off the cob. they love eating the little nibbles of popcorn (which are the cutest thing ever). they'll eat the dried corn off the cob, but they love the popcorn best. i'm considering hitting up rummage sales this summer to see if i can find an air popper & then i'll just buy some popping corn & make that for them, a lot cheaper than the dried mini cobs. they also really like strawberry frosted shredded mini wheats & life cereal, those are also infinitely cheaper than actual rat treats :)

sundance & cassidy are almost complete opposites. sundance is definitely my little outlaw! he has so much energy, i wish i had half of his energy! he's always the first to wake up & want to come out & play. he also has yet to run around until he's worn out. cassidy on the other hand i'm always having to wake up & coax out of the cage. he'll also be running around & then decide that it's nap time & just curl up in the middle of my kitchen floor. ok, maybe curl up is the wrong term. he'll just lay down & assume the ferret "speed bump" position.

i've been able to clip cassidy's nails but haven't had as much success with sundance. then again, i've been able to clip cassidy's because i catch him when he's still mostly asleep. this coming weekend i'm going to give them a bath for the first time. it will also be time to clean their ears for the first time. & ironically i think sundance is going to be the one that likes taking a bath. i have no clue on the ear cleaning. i was showering sunday morning & i was letting the boys run for a bit while i was getting ready, all of a sudden i looked down & sundance was in the shower playing in the water! crazy little fuzzy.

cassidy loves to sleep on his back showing his belly with his front paws straight in the air. i've nicknamed it the dead ferret pose. sometimes sundance will curl up with cassidy, or he'll lay on top of his brother & fall asleep across him. even though cassidy is the more mellow one occasionally i'll see him chasing sundance around the apartment or getting the best of his brother in a wrestling match. their absolute favorite place to play, for some reason, is my bathroom. but a close second is any place that they possible shouldn't be. the picture at the bottom is my absolute favorite, their butts sticking out of my boyfriend's boots. don't ask me why they would want to stick their noses all the way into shoes, but they do it. they love to do the same to my skate shoes & they were oddly obsessed with my brother's shoes when he was here. the same with steph's shoes when she popped by.

what's normal?

weighing in around 181 lately. which is frustrating beyond belief to me because i want to be in the 170's so bad. the only weight i remember being under 200 lbs was 180. & that was when i was 14 & in eighth grade. so once lately at work the comment i get most often is "you're shrinking away into nothing" or "you're just disappearing" or something of that ilk. basically telling me i'm getting way to skinny. once i'm into the 170's firmly it's going to be huge for me. it'll be "virgin weight territory" for me.

i'll admit i haven't been to the gym. the last time i was there was before my exploratory surgery, the day before my ER visit actually. i did get the medical okie-dokie to go ahead with any activity i want, just to go slowly. so i'm not supposed to immediately go to hard core weight lifting when i've done pretty much nothing since january, which is, of course, a DUH statement. i know once i get back to the gym, even if it's just walking for 30 minutes every other day that's going to help push my body out of this little plateau i seem to be stuck in. i also am anxious to start weight lifting again & really get back to my pilates & yoga. i'm also currently in the middle of a fucking wicked back injury, so that blows pretty hard core :( just sleeping, working, or being conscious is pretty painful, so i'm still not going back to the gym quite yet. & unfortunately back injuries just take time & pampering to really get better.

my long range plan is to do yoga or pilates every morning before work, & then do weight lifting after work. & by long range i mean i'm hoping to be to that level of activity by the end of july 2009. i used to work out twice a day for a total of 2-4 hours a day, & that was a combination of weight lifting/cardio in the form of the firm videos & then also pilates. i won't be going back to 4 hours a day of working out just because i have work, my ratties, my ferrets, a boyfriend, family, friends, & my writing, all of which i'm trying to balance & give each one enough time without shorting any of them.

looking & i told her that most days when people say i look thin that i want to respond with "yeah, so friday afternoon i met with my thesis advisor, deborah, & she was telling me how good i'mi'm thinner than the fat girl i used to be, but i'm still frickin big." & she said that i'm not big at all, that from her point of view i look "normal." so what is normal? i thought i heard recently that the average american woman wears a size 14. which, i'm still bigger than that. my shirts are around a size 12 (men's medium or ladies large) & most of my jeans are a 16, but those are kinda getting big on me right now. so i guess if i'm almost a size 14 then i'm nearing the size of the average american woman, but that does also take into account that there are people who are a tiny size 0 & then there are people who are a lot bigger.

my body perception is so bizarre lately. when i lay on my side my hip bones jut out a bit, even though i have plenty of flab on my thighs, belly, arms....pretty much all over. & now my rib cage is fairly prominent, same with my shoulder blades. my wrists are tiny enough that when i work at the group home i carry clothes to the residents rooms by hanging the hangers off my wrists while grabbing all the folded items in my arms. but then i can't wear my doc martin knee boots because my calves are still pretty chunky....which totally blows that i can use my wrists as a clothes bar but can't wear my knee boots. how is that even remotely fair?

according to the BMI charts that so lovingly grace the walls of every single fucking doctor's office a person walks into, i am still obese. at 181 lbs, wearing about a 14/16 & nearing what is the average size of the american woman, i'm still obese. i won't be "overweight" until i'm 174 lbs. it would be 179 if i was 5'5", but being a really short girl at 5'4 1/4" it's more like 174-ish. i know it's all just numbers not based on any kind of physical reality of a person, but still, thos numbers can matter. if, for instance, i needed to buy some life insurance, that's part of the calculation. it blows, but it is. according to the BMI chart i won't be a "normal" weight until i'm 145 lbs. it does make me wonder though, since i can feel certain bones jutting out pretty regularily now, how would i look at 145? or if i make it down to the 133 that HCMC deemed to be my ideal weight (had i never been fat).

once i reach the elusive 179 my next goal that i'll be striving towards is 161.5. once i reach that weight then i will have lost, since my highest weight, officially half my body weight. i do have some pics from when i was alot bigger. the ones i have on my computer are all hovering around 290 or so, i'd have to search through old pics at my parents' to see if i can find a picture of me around my highest weight. but i should put something up soon. i don't even have a recent picture of myself to put up. but, i'm getting my hair done on tuesday evening, so maybe i'll have my stylist take a picture of me. i'll need to remember to wear something ultra cute that day.

but back to the blog title: what IS normal? for weight, for size, for all of it. i really don't know anymore.

update (7/14/8): here is a pic from my birthday. my brother was just snapping random pics with my digital cam & i didn't know he was taking it, & i'm not super psyched about it, but here it is for now.

do two ferrets & a human count as a carpool?

on wednesday night i picked up my new boys, two six month old ferrets. unfortunately their previous owner was unable to give them the play time & attention they needed because of work, so she made the tough decision to put a posting on craig's list & give up her boys. i'm sad for her, but it's rather fortunate for me. she had the ad up for the two boys, their cage, all the litter, bedding, supplies she had left for them. so tonight after i left erik at his place with his two new ferrets (jack & jill) he adopted from the woodbury humane society, i headed over to meet the guys & see if they would take to me.

the guys were sleeping when i got there, but they did let me handle them & were so sweet i said i'd love to be their new mom. so i headed home with two new ferrets in a pet carrier, their cage in the back seat of my saturn, & a bag with all their assorted accompaniments (food, litter, nail clippers, etc, etc). i felt so bad for them that first night, they were scared from the car ride, & then there were fireworks going off at the plymouth town hall when i got home, & then they were in a new place with two rats that were definitely giving them the evil eye. i'm not sure leif & anthony are too fond of their new brothers.

but, they've made a great adjustment already! they were in a pretty small cage for just one ferret, but really small for two. they were in the ferret starter cage, which isn't a bad cage at all, i just like to spoil my pets. & so last night after work i headed out to petsmart & got them a HUGE new cage. the damn thing is almost taller than me. but it's really ferret proof in that they really can't get out at all. it has four levels so they have plenty of room to play & for their toys & bedding. i also got a small animal "play pen" to help ferret proof my apartment. i can either hook it all together into a play pen or, the way i've been using it lately, is just as a gate to fence off my appliances so they can't get behind the stove & fridge.

yeah, four pets is a lot, but they're all little guys that can be confined to cages. it's not like i have four cats running around or four dogs or anything like that. but they do take time & care & love. which i am more than happy to give them. it also assures that i will NOT be working the insane 10-12 hour days that i have been lately. ferrets do need time out of their cage, around 3-4 hours a day, so i need to make sure i'm home & around to let them roam my place & play.

& here are some pics! the names they had were guero & travieso (blonde & mischievous in spanish). the names didn't mean much to me so i renamed them butch cassidy & the sundance kid, cassidy & sundance for short. cassidy is the one with the dark tail & sundance is the one that has the white on the tip of his tail.