We Have Kittens 'Twin Boys'

Okay, it has been a few weeks and I keep forgetting to post this but we adopted two boy kittens.  They are brothers and look like twins.  The kids can tell them apart from the markings on their faces.  I tell them apart by the tip of their tails.

Cheetah (Daeton's kitten) has a black tip on his tail.

Pumpkin (Kaela's kitten) has a orange tip on his tail.  He is also a little bit more orange and this color is showing more the older they get.

We got them at 8-weeks-old.  Staci's friend had them.  There was a litter of '6-8'  (she wasn't sure) and these were the last two.  Staci said her friend was going to drop them off at the animal shelter if she couldn't get someone to adopt them and I gave in and said yes.  I knew the kids would love them and with two they wouldn't fight so much.

We also still have Jett.  She is 3 1/2 years old now.

So, am I a 'crazy cat lady' or do I have to have four or more to meet that criteria?  I'm not sure but I KNOW that three is the limit.  The litter box is crazy and if it isn't emptied EVERY SINGLE DAY Jett decides it is 'too full' for her and she will poop in the corner of the living room.

All I keep thinking is 'What did I get myself into?????'

But I look at them and they are so cute, love to cuddle and have great personalities.

I am making the appointment with the vet tomorrow to get them both fixed (I was told to do it before 4 months or they might start marking.).  The local animal shelter has a voucher for a $20 off and our vet has a voucher too, making it $20 each kitten to fix them.

Lets see if they still love me after I put them both through that surgery.

eBay Sales, Garage Sale Finds And Things That Don't Sell

It has been WAY too long since I have had a lot of auctions on eBay.  With my son having football games every Saturday it is hard to go garage sale-ing.  I am trying to clean, declutter and purge in the garage.  Everything is either in a 'next garage sale to get rid of' pile or on one counter-top, the 'list on eBay' pile.  The second pile takes up 1/2 of my counter-top.  The first pile is a lot more.  I have boxes in my garage on the floor, on the other counter-top and my shed almost completely full of garage sale stuff.

I am planning on having my next garage sale on December  24th or 31st.  I have had this two years now the first Saturday after Christmas and the garage sale was a HUGE success. This year, since the first Saturday after Christmas is New Years I might do it the day before Christmas instead.

The last two times I did this (I skipped last year since I didn't have anything to sell) I had four friends helping me for the first few hours of the day.  It was THAT busy. There were cars up and down the street and over 20 people in my yard at one time.  It was an absolute madhouse!  Why?  Because no one else is crazy enough to have a garage sale on that day.  So, regular garage salers, people with nothing to do and saw it in the paper, and people that saw the signs ALL came to my garage sale since no one else, anywhere around, was having a garage sale.  I had customers come from over 30 miles away in both directions.

So, where do I get my stuff and what do I do with it?

First I get things and I try to sell them on eBay if they are a decent size to ship and on Craig's List or Cheapcycle (a knock-off groups of Freecycle that is just starting up) if the items are large and too big or heavy to ship.

I get these items from garage sales (I mostly go to nicer cities that have richer residence) or moving sales, since it is a 'everything must go' attitude at them or church rummage sales (since people don't have their own nostalgic feelings on items they are selling so they usually have lower prices. I also sometimes find things at estate sales or thrift stores.

There is two good times to go to a garage sale.  The very beginning of the day, when you find the goldmine items before anyone else, but are paying close to their asking price.  If you go at the end of the day, especially on a hot day, they are DONE, don't care, just want to sell everything and not pack it up again.  They will give you super cheap prices at this time.

Once I have things I search them on 'completed auctions' on eBay to verify they are worth selling and the approximate cost that the item is going for, sold.  Sometimes things look like they'd be a great sell but are worth nothing.  These items, as well as the items I tried to sell but didn't, all go into my garage sale pile or to the thrift store as a donation.

The items worth selling get photographed and then listed on eBay.  Right now here is my current auctions: Debbzs eBay Auctions


I pay $2.50 a month to Auctiva, an outside listing company, for some extra perks in my listings.


I try to only list items that I think will sell for the minimum of $25.00 for it to be worth my time and so that I can make the most of my sales.


With any sale the cost of the listing, how much eBay collects and how much I have to pay to Paypal makes it where anything smaller in sales isn't worth it.

Something like this, a doggie door that fits into a sliding glass door, I will try to sell on Craig's List & Cheapcycle first, since it will be expensive to ship.  However, this particular one, is brand new and already boxed to ship.  A friend bought it online two years ago and never used it.  So it is ready to ship.  So, I will try to sell on Craig's list to save the money on postage and eBay fees, but if I can't sell it, I'll post it on eBay.

Saturday's visit to the ER

Well, in my last post I mentioned Kaela being sick so I wasn't surprised when Daeton got it next.  However he got it 100 times worse and 4 times as long.

Kaela got sick Thursday morning. She vomited about five times.  Was tired most of the day. Tossed around all night long with stomach pains and cramps and had diarrhea once the next morning.  The rest of Friday she had a headache but was better.

Daeton got it Saturday morning.  He ended up missing his football game that we were all ready to go to.

He woke up tired.  Started making dashes for the bathroom about 8am and I gave him anti-diarrhea medicine. Started vomiting about 10am and didn't stop.  Their dad came and took Kaela only for his weekend and left Daeton to stay home.

I took Daeton to Urgent Care about 1pm because he was still having it come out both ends.  Daeton was throwing up in the dr office trash can for his whole visit and exam but the doctor said to go buy over-the-counter diarrhea medicine and that was it.  I told him Daeton needed anti-nausea medicine or he'd be dehydrated and in the ER.  The doctor said, 'You might be right but he isn't there yet so I'm not going to prescribe it for you.'  (yes I was pissed).

So, about 6:30pm, when Daeton was still sick and racing for the toilet, I got him dressed and took him to Simi Valley Hospital's Emergency Room (ER).  We were very fortunate to arrive to the place being almost empty.  Before I even signed Daeton in the triage nurse (that checks in patients) had him in a wheelchair and asked me to check him in with the front desk (they get insurance card, verify address, name, dob, etc) while she started on his vitals.  From there they put a id bracket on him and took us to a hospital room (still in the ER).

We waited about 10 minutes and the doctor came in, checked on him and I told him that Daeton'd been vomiting and having diarrhea for about 12 hours by this time and that the Urgent Care doctor had done nothing.  The ER doctor wrote up orders and about 30 hour later Daeton had an IV drip to hydrate him and they put the anti-nausea medicine in the IV line.  They also gave him (in the line also) some pain medicine for the stomach muscle spasms and pain.

When were were at the ER the doctor called Daeton's pediatrician (that was on call, thankfully) and he said he wanted us to do a follow up call with him on Monday, in his office.  I really like the kids' pediatrician and wish he had been the one to be there when we went to Urgent Care.

We were there for over 5 hours. They gave him three full IV bags for 'sugar water' to hydrate him.  I'm not sure exactly what it is but that is the layman's term for it.  He had stopped vomiting immediately after the anti-nausea medicine had been administered but they still have me two to take home (that devolve under the tongue) and a prescription for five more.

That night he slept for from about 1am until 5am and then tossed around until 6am and woke up saying his hands were hurting him.  I called the ER nurse and she couldn't think of anything that would cause his hands to be hurting him.  He described it as needles stabbing through his hands.  I think it was due to the high amount of fluids in his body and that he was feeling a tightness, like water retention, in his fingers.  I heated up the 'rice sock' as we call it and gave it to him and he hugged it with both hands and fell back to sleep.  About 1/2 hr later, when the rice sock had cooled off, he was tossing again and in pain.  I reheated it and he hugged it and went back to sleep.

He woke up about 8am, went to the bathroom and his fingers were okay and he didn't remember them hurting earlier (he must have been too tired and sleepy).

On Sunday he was tired, very sore- especially from vomiting for so many hours, and had a headache but felt better.

On Monday it was MY turn.  I did not vomit at all but did race for the bathroom a few times and then had a headache and was VERY tired.  I was okay the first 1/2 of the day but napped from 1-2:30. Got up and took the kids to Daeton's pediatrician appointment.  Got home and fell back asleep from about 3:30-8pm.  I was up on/off in that time for the kids asking questions or talking to me.  Kaela made them both dinner of Hot Pockets.  I got them to bed about 9pm and went back to sleep until 8:30 the next morning.

And so, on Tuesday we all were healthy but the days of Daeton not taking his ADHD medicine (from when he was sick) caught up to him and he didn't wake up until 10:30 am, was cranky and grumpy all day and then napped from 2-4:15pm.

I made him go to football but to sit on the sidelines and watch the plays the kids were learning but not practice  or exercise at all.

and... now I think we are recovered besides the 101 things of 'catch-up' I need to do.

:-)

Get Out And Play; Worldwide Day of Play to turn off the TV and play outside

My family seems to be running around without stopping most of the week.  Enrichment classes, school work, errands, field trips, even violin lessons.  But I try to make sure we exercise all the time. There is an old saying about if the parents read in a household than so will the children.  Well, the same goes for exercise. 

The Clorox 2 Play 2 Day pledge is a perfect intensive for my children to do more outdoors.  http://clorox2play2day.com,

Right now my son is in football. This year is his first in www.gcyfl.com.  He has practice three times a week, for two hours each time (and yes, the white jersey and padded shorts are full of grass and dirt stains after every practice) and one game a week.

I am on an adult kickball team, playing on the Mercury league for WAKA.  We have games once a week and practice every Sunday.  Both of my kids help out at practices, running for others, fielding the balls, and we even let them go up to bat.

With these two sports taking up five days a week, my daughter isn't in any active sports but does practice gymnastics and running (track starts in February) and goes on 2-4 mile walks a few times a week.

With busy lives we have a hard time fitting in some down time but I try to schedule or 'undschedule' that as well so we have time to go to the park and play on the jungle gyms.

Exercise is important for everyone in the family.  Not just for someone overweight, not just for the kids.  For everyone.  If the parents are healthy they are setting examples for their children.

In honor of the Clorox2® Play 2Day pledge to play outside  I am going to try to reduce any multi-media in our house for the next month.

This will be hard, since my kids DO play on too many games.  My son has an X-Box, DSi, iPod and laptop.  My daughter  has the same, minus the X-Box.  All of these are a addiction and attraction to them, especially my son.  When we are driving, waiting for an appointment, or not told to go out and play, they are both drawn to these games or the television.    NONE of which are that great for them besides being a babysitter.  I definately notice a correlation between how many hours of multi-media they have had and their attitudes and behavior.

I am going to do a reward chart for hours of exercise, by the 1/2 hr mark with rewards of outdoor toys.  A new Frisbee, balls to play catch with and other items that are attractive and fun in the sporting good section of the stores.  Maybe a big reward is a tether-ball pole!

I'd love ideas other people have to make exercise fun for the whole family and what they do together. 

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Clorox2® blogging program, for a gift card worth $40. For more information on how you can participate, ”click here."

Loose Change From The Car

We went to Coin Star this week with a tote bag of loose change that has been accumulating in my car (and from the car before this one). This money was mostly loose change from fast food purchases or anything else I paid cash for and got change back that was coins.