Charlie is a spoiled brat

[traildrifterphalanx]

The wedding was really quite beautiful, it's such a shame that stuff like this is just so uncomfortable for me. I'm very happy for my friends, regardless, but man that was a long weekend.

If I ever get married... oi...

 

[NBGwen]

Glad to hear it was beautiful I'm sure your babies were happy to see you when you got home!

 

[SHBailey]

You never know -- "true love" can hit you upside the head when you least expect it. Believe it or not, that happened to me for the first time in my life when I was 41 years old. But you do have a choice to keep your wedding simple, as long as everyone else involved is willing to go along with it. And the advice I give people nowadays is that if the wedding plans get too stressful, consider elopement... :wink:

But I bet you were glad to get home to your little reptile family when the long weekend was over.

My husband is supposed to be using up the last of his "use it or lose it" time off by working half days this week, but we just found out that his relief isn't going to show up on time today, so I told him to tell them he'll stay for the rest of the day today and negotiate for the whole day off tomorrow -- that way he won't get stuck there if they don't show up again (and don't answer the phone :roll: ). Meanwhile, it's a cloudy rainy summer day so the reptiles and I are just hanging around the house...

 

[NBGwen]

I totally agree. I was on a huge man-hate (just kicked out a cheating/mentally verbally abusive man) when I met current hubby playing World of Warcraft (not joking...we were guildies with mutual friends). Over 3 months of grouping together led to me asking if he was on FB, a week later we were spending 4 hours on the phone (not a joke), a week after that we met in person (he lived 4 hours away). I somehow managed to wrangle this very patient man into my clan of 2 insane kidlets and myself, and we now have a 3 year old together (he had never married before and never thought he'd have kids). We have our moments, but I love him. We kept our wedding extremely simple - our son was born Jan 2014, he made the comment that he would like us to be married the same year in July LOL! Two weeks later and on my parents 50th anniversary we got married in a civil ceremony with whoever was able to make it, outside by a covered bridge and a fun party at a rec centre afterwards - my kids had a blast, we had a blast!

Sooo...should I be worried? Charlie is down 5 grams this week :| BUT he's been shedding ALL week too...and poor dude has not had much attention from mommy this week as we've vacillated between selling our house and not...we're not, but it's been crazy. Poor buddy.

I wish I could do half days :shock: I have a week off in August and 2 vacation days left...my own fault though for using my time for the kids and sick days the start of the year...ugh.

 

[SHBailey]

I wouldn't worry about a 5 gram loss. They can lose that much with one good poop. And some of them lose their appetite for a little while when they're shedding too. If things get back to the normal routine now that you're not moving, that may help Charlie feel better too.

I was really lucky that the first and only man I ever fell in love with (at the age of 41, believe it or not) did not turn out to be a cheater, abuser, etc, and our lives are really simple compared to yours -- neither of us had ever been married before, and we never had any human children. He's an avid genealogist and I met him at a family history library, so when we got married I became #18,011 in his computer files of relatives and ancestors. He now has one of my lines back to the 1400s and one of his own lines back to Adam. He was up to about 34,000 names when he quit storing it all on his local hard drive and started putting it in the "cloud", and now he's lost track. He has an uncanny ability to make wild half educated guesses about when and where some significant life event happened (births, deaths, weddings, etc) based on circumstantial evidence, so he can find the records and vital statistics. We spent some time on one of our vacations looking at gravestones in little churchyards where some of his ancestors lived, but other than being a nice little outing, that's a fairly inefficient way to do it compared to the internet.

He's back on full time this week, except for the holiday tomorrow, a couple of days off next week to drive down to Homer for his dad's 80th birthday, and the use of the rest of his time off for the new fiscal year to be decided later. He has big plans for some backyard projects, but I'm trying to get him to be realistic about how much time and energy, not to mention $$$, we're really going to have before the end of the summer.

 

[NBGwen]

That's so cool! I totally get obsessing over genealogy... I sometimes obsess over mine, then have to drop it for a while as it can consume you lol - I have a hard time researching though as many of my direct ancestors are Welsh...and well, I'm in Canada.

I don't regret my first marriage anymore...it is what it is and I have two pretty amazing kids from it. Wishing it away, would be wishing them away...though my daughter at times voices my thoughts in saying she wishes my hubby was her dad.

Yeah, Charlie is having a big shed, I think it's just a bump in the growth pattern. He's definitely still eating, just not as much and NO more waxworms!!!

 

[NBGwen]

Weightloss was definitely a blip. Weighed him this morning, because I'm neurotic that way, and he's back up over what he was LOL! Now if there were a way I could make sure he is actually eating...I've seen him chomp down on his greens, but I noticed the crix have figured out the bowl trick and so did the superworms :| I found three supers crawling around his enclosure. Not a happy momma. Morning feedings have been difficult as he's been sleeping in!!! His lights turn on around 5:30 am to give him time to warm up for about 6:30 when I can feed him before heading to work. By 7 am the last few morning mister lazy bones has been in his hide, sleeping! I dug him out this morning and he had a look on his face similar to what my teens get when I wake them up early :lol:

 

[SHBailey]

Yes, genealogy can suck you in. Sometimes I have to remind my husband to come to bed. :roll:

They're uploading more and more stuff onto the internet, so someday you may be able to research your Welsh ancestry from home with your computer even though you're in Canada.

If it's at all possible for your husband to legally adopt your daughter, I suppose that's as close as it could get to him being her dad.

I'm no longer able to work so I'm home all day and theoretically I can feed our beardie whenever I'm up to it ("Daddy" does it when I'm not up to it), but he only gets live bugs once a week. The vet recommended that, in the hope that he would get hungry enough to eat his greens in the meantime, but he holds out for bugs and we have to slip the greens in his mouth while he's chewing on a bug or he'd have probably turned into a strict carnivore -- not a good thing for an adult beardie. So we feed him on Saturdays when my husband is home and can help if I need it, and we don't have to ever leave any live bugs in the tank unsupervised. We've been taking him out of his enclosure and feeding him in a big plastic tub where the bugs have nowhere to hide, especially since he's such a lousy shot with his tongue, and they usually get away from him several time before he finally catches them. That's been getting worse lately, and we started wondering if the tub was too cold and too slippery for him, so last Saturday I tried putting a little dish of roaches right under his nose when he was on his basking platform and he had very little trouble scarfing them all up. I can catch roaches easily if they crawl out of the dish before he gets them, just as long as I can keep track of them, but I wouldn't try that with crickets, so our ongoing project of trying to manage getting him enough variety in his diet is still evolving. :?

We put a fresh green salad in his enclosure every day, and take it out at night and replace it in the morning, but he almost never touches it. :roll:

 

[NBGwen]

I've pulled a few really late nights when I would buy my occasional world archive membership for the month...OMG...sooo...much...info... I have actually been to Wales, but didn't manage to get the info I would have loved now. I was 23 and fresh out of my first university degree...more interested in meeting the cousins and visiting everything really old (and Roman, and Welsh).

My ex won't allow it I was something we had discussed...I may bring it up with her as she nears 18...(she's 17 1/2 now ACK!).

Sorry to hear you can't work. I work full time, but I have a VERY understanding and tolerant manager who likes my work when I am fully functional (yay MS), hubs can only work part-time thanks to his Parkinson's and he wouldn't touch Charlie with a 10 foot pole LOL! Charlie is my baby - that being said, he did feed him for me once when I was out. I think Charlie is growing on him.

Charlie loves his bok choy. That's it. I've started adding some pellets underneath the bok choy in hopes of him getting some more varied nutrition. I used to try to feed him in a container with the insects and he wouldn't move. He would just sit there and let them crawl all over him. UGH Hence the need to put them IN his enclosure.

 

[NBGwen]

It was definitely a blip in his growth. Today Charlie weighed in at 500 g and 19 inches!!! He's 6 1/2 months. Crazy!

Grumpy Charlie not happy with momma after his measure in lol! His tail and legs are in shed too, so he's due for a nice soak.

 

[SHBailey]

You're lucky you have a good boss who likes your work when you're able and accommodates you when you're not. My disability involves unpredictable, debilitating, and so far incurable episodes of depression and fatigue that have gradually gotten worse as I've gotten older. I lasted for only 17 years full time in the work force and burned out (basically had what they used to call a nervous breakdown -- I don't know what sort of fancy name they have for it nowadays :? ) twice at two different jobs, and in both cases it was a critical and demanding supervisor that pushed me over the edge. Fortunately, in the meantime I was lucky enough to marry a man who was willing and able to be the sole breadwinner for both of us, although he also has some disabilities that have made it difficult for him to get an education and to get and keep a job, so his career got off to a late start while mine ended early. The difference between him and me is that he is somehow able to drag himself out of bed and go to work every day, but it has been about 15 years since I was even partially able to consistently perform to someone else's expectations. Fortunately, he also loves the reptiles as much as I do and is willing and able to help me take care of them when I'm not up to it, otherwise they would get severely neglected on my bad days and it wouldn't even be fair to them for me to try to keep them.

Teenagers reach the age of majority really fast when you're not looking, and then I suppose it won't matter so much who her legal parents are anymore...

We tried Puff with the kibbles because I wanted to have something with a long shelf life that I could keep around so he wouldn't have to go hungry in case we ever get into a situation where we can't get live bugs and/or fresh greens for a while, but he won't eat them. He doesn't seem to recognize them as food. :| We've had better luck with Repashy Grub Pie -- the powder also has a long shelf life and once you make it up into the gel you can keep it in the fridge for a week or two or freeze it, and then it also contains some moisture so they get a little hydration with it. Puff seems to really like the taste of it, but it also seems to be a pretty good laxative, maybe a little too good, althouh he does tend to get constipated once in a while so it's also nice to know we have something he actually likes and will eat that can help with that. (No go with pumpkin, applesauce, prune juice, etc.)

Charlie is a very handsome beardie, notwithstanding the shedding and the dirty look. :mrgreen:

 

[NBGwen]

I am VERY lucky. I honestly understand what you're saying - on top of my MS I suffer from severe anxiety/depression. I function because I have to...hubby can only work part-time and not even doing that right now due to his broken collarbone (which seems to be making his Parkinson's tremor worse). *badword* chronic illness...it sucks and that's an understatement. I think, honestly though, if my manager knew HOW dysfunctional I really am, I probably wouldn't have a job. I'm at work. I have no focus (thanks brain fog). I'm basically a body in a seat right now. Somedays getting through the work day is all I have in me. Other days, I rock this job. I love it I really do. I think if I was in my old job still I would not be working.

Too true...She turns 18 next March...it seems far too close

Charlie hasn't touched the pellets yet but I think he has licked at them...I'm going to keep trying and I'll try the Repashy too - it seems to get a lot of good reviews.

He is a sassy butt LOL I love him - he makes me happy, the least I can do is make sure I 100% do my best to make his life amazing.

 

[SHBailey]

You sound like you're a lot like I was when I was still working -- my good days were really really good and my bad days were really really bad, but when the bad days outnumbered the good days to the point that I couldn't keep up with the work anymore and I ran out of sick leave, I had to quit -- no other real options.

I think I burned out as a housewife around 5 years ago, but my sweet husband seems to appreciate every little thing I'm still able to do even though it isn't much , and he does what he can to help, and the rest we just do without. The reptiles have priority -- if we get to the end of the day and they've been fed, bathed, cleaned up after, cuddled, etc, and had all their needs met, we call it good even if the rest of the housework isn't done.

 

[NBGwen]

Yes - that is very much me. I'm worried for when I go downhill as I'm the main breadwinner

On a Charlie front, I did up a chart of his growth so far...I feel like such a geek LOL
I made it into an image so it was easier to share LOL

 

[traildrifterphalanx]

I for the life of me cannot figure out how to put this on a graph unless done manually on graph paper, so in the meantime I just keep taking photos of weight and length lol.

Good growth on dat beast!