Black Jewel Orchid Buds

I expect the cool temps in my house helped cause this. I have two separate plants now in bud, and it's been years since this happened last. My huge christmas cactus is also putting on a nice show. I guess this is an upside of being too cheap to turn the heat up yet. The reptiles have their heat lamps and their room is about 10 degrees warmer then the house, but the rest of us have been cold. I did cave a few days ago and turn the heat on for the bird, who had taken an impromptu bath in her water dish and was soaking wet. That was a nice warm day.

So I guess I need a greenhouse so I can keep chilling the plants when I finally cave on the heat.

Cat Bed

I'm on a little reorganization kick. My goal is removing clutter and adding space to my house. Getting things into drawers or cabinets so I don't have to dust is an extra goal. I moved my bed and finally have space in my bedroom for my bed, two dog beds and a cat bed without tripping all over them. The cat bed is actually stuck inside my nightstand. The nightstand had two drawers but the bottom one was useless (read full of junk), so I removed it and the drawer slide and put the cat bed in there. She seems quite happy about the arrangement. When spring rolls around I'm going to take it outside and alter it with both a paint job and some structural changes to the top (glue on cork). Next up is reworking my desk so I actually have a work surface, storage and my computer will be a bit better protected from dust, dirt and dog hair.

Black Jewel Orchid Buds

So I spotted this in my kitchen yesterday. This is a larger piece like the plants in this post about propagation. I expect cold and light deprivation have something to do with bud formation. My house is at the coldest I've kept it in several years (barring the reptiles). today i checked the main plant in my bedroom, and same thing, two buds. I'm quite excited as it's been years since I had flowers. The Christmas cactus has also been putting on a record show since I spent the last month sitting in the reptile room writing (not keeping the lights on in the living room).

Bee Balm Seedhead

As you may have noticed I finished NaNoWriMo. Now I just have all that pesky editing to do.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

50019 / 50000
(100.04%)

I Finished!

50,019 words. Let the editing begin.

Ferny Frost

Another from yesterday. Some kind of wood fern I transplanted for its own safety.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

44078 / 50000
(88.16%)

Frosty Milkweed

I went outside and found this pretty thing.

You may notice no word count today. My laptop ate roughly 600 words yesterday, so I finished my 2000 words, but ended up with 1400 or so actual words. I'll be filling that back up today.

I lied

I did go outside, but didn't bring a camera. That leaves you with more reptile pictures. Here's my bitey crested gecko who recently got downgraded to a 10 gallon tank due to space constraints in the room. On a positive note, I just passed 40,000 words.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

40026 / 50000
(80.05%)

Spike

I promise I'll go outside this weekend, as soon as I finish my writing.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

34024 / 50000
(68.05%)

Crested Gecko

She set herself up so nicely. Too bad I didn't have the better flash on hand. The in camera flash sets off pre-flashes which get crested gecko eyes down to slits.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

32044 / 50000
(64.09%)

It's a Dog Week

I'm busy writing, so here's my mother's dog, who is no where near as old as this picture makes her look. She's the youngest of the bunch. I won't post my sister's dog, the few of her in focus came out looking a little evil, sorry Deuce.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

30034 / 50000
(60.07%)

Leafy Dog

And of course here's Toka with a nice seasonally appropriate background.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

28036 / 50000
(56.07%)

Boomer

I just realized Boomer hasn't been on here before. I had a seasonal photo shoot with the dogs over the weekend (hot dogs and four dogs gets interesting) and Boomer looked good. So here's my second dog who gets much less face time since he's so much more laid back.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

26005 / 50000
(52.01%)

NaNoWriMo

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, so updates will likely be even less often than usual. I'm up to 22,026 words as of right now. I'm also slowly painting my kitchen floor tan, which there may or may not be a post about later.

Kitchen Floor

This sucker has been eating my life. I'm painting the floor of my kitchen replacing the blue vinyl tiles I've been living with. Since I need to use the kitchen I've been doing it in chunks. Half the tiles peeled up on their own over the years, and the other half are stuck amazingly well. I've been peeling up chunks of 6-12 tiles and painting the sticky floor with some tan floor paint we had sitting around. I'm not sure I'll be sticking with just the flat tan, or doing some effect to the floor, but the paint is much better than the old floor.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

22014 / 50000
(44.03%)

Leopard Gecko

This is a randomly selected image chosen by closing my eyes and clicking a few times. (Okay, I randomly selected two pictures before this, and neither were in focus, so this is really number 3.) Meet Spike both my oldest critter, and the first reptile I ever brought home. He's survived all my beginner screw ups quite well.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

18040 / 50000
(36.08%)

Cat Mugshot

She's just so cute. If only she'd stop scratching her nose up on everything she can find.  (Years later - 2014 - it became obvious a nasal tumor was causing the scratching, which combined with a thyroid problem eventually killed her. The thyroid medication was also a blood thinner and she sneezed blood all over the house for a few weeks. You are welcome fro that awesome image.)

White's Tree Frog

Since it's been painfully cold out recently, and I'm heating the reptile cages anyway, making my extra bedroom the warmest room in the house by far, I've been spending lots of time in the reptile room. I fixed the desk that used to hold cages so I can use it for writing and I've been hanging out with all my critters. The above frog is for some reason the least favorite critter of any guest I have. None of my extended family seem to like him. I think he's quite photogenic. He's also one of my older critters. He's coming up on 8 years, which is pretty good for a frog the size of my fist.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

14029 / 50000
(28.06%)