Once a month Mother Nature has gifted all women with a lovely gift. This gift consists of bloating, cramps, back pain, headaches, bleeding. Isn't Mother Nature great? Occasionally with this gift you are given cramps that make you want to curl up into a fetal position and cry for your mommy. This was one such month for me. My husband, being the kind soul he is, picked up a package of the Thermacare heat pack things for me. Lasts longer than my heat up rice pack and I was stoked. So, I read the box carefully before I applied the first one. It states that it may cause burns, that those over 55 are more susceptible, to remove at the first sign of discomfort, to not wear a waistband that pushes the heat pack tightly against the skin. So, I scrambled through my undie drawer and found a pair of my no line panties for when I used to wear skirts. They have a higher waist so there would be no waistband issues. I traded my pj shirt and bottoms for a nightshirt so there would be no waistband issues there. I popped that bad boy in and prepared for cramp relief. About three hours later I was cramp free and decided it was enough and pulled it out. What to my surprise happened? Skin came with it. That's right, skin. In three hours, without me being able to feel it happening, I had burned quarter size circles onto my lower stomach. Not only had I burned but I had blistered and the act of pulling the Thermacare off had pulled the skin of the blister off. So, now I had raw quarter size painful areas on my stomach. Pain, pain, pain. It still hurts today and probably will hurt for a few more days.

Lesson learned with this? Don't ever use Thermacare heat wraps again and don't ever try to get out of Mother Natures little gift!

Squeal like a Ferret

I spent all night last night breaking up ferret fights. Smokes is a squealer, much like LJ but not as high pitched and whiny. Today, every time she started to lose a fight she'd run to me for me to pick her up. Hmmm.. Sounds like LJ too. I think I've rescued her ass from more than one set of drunk hands. In fact, she seems to have a lot in common with LJ. She's not too bright, she did try and eat Styrofoam to get to the steak inside. She's constantly trying to pick on people bigger than her and then runs to me for help. She squeals her displeasure and throws fits loud enough to wake up the whole house.

Fuck, I adopted the ferret version of LJ! Kill me now!

Smokes

So, we have wanted to quit smoking. By We I mean I have wanted to and my husband has wanted to but he has no will power. Me, I'm fine, as long as I'm not smelling smoke. He paces like a caged animal and dumps tobacco into a pipe (like that helps). Then he yells at me for being all Zen and just going on with what I gotta do. So, I have been nagging him and nagging him and today finally found the trigger to make it happen.

Smokes, the ferret, is the new addition. We were out today and he saw her. He went all gooey and acted like it was his newborn daughter. He cooed and petted and, dare I say it, just about giggled. So, I was honest and said, "Listen, we just can't afford her....unless we quit smoking." I saw his mind working, his eyes kept darting from the ferret to the lady and he finally thrust the ferret at her and said, "Wrap her up before I change my mind."

So, he named her smokes, to remind himself of why he gave up smoking. That makes three boys and three girls, the ferret factory is now officially closed!