I made Swedish Meatballs last night with this recipe I found on Yahoo Shine.

They were AMAZING! I did alter the recipe a bit, we only had beef in the house. I added noodles. I added chopped onions & mushrooms to the sauce. And I added a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoon of brown sugar & a dash of rosemary to the meatballs and sauce. I also made the meatballs a bit larger so I cooked them for 30 minutes. But otherwise, I followed the recipe! The meatballs tasted like they had slow cooked for hours. Sooo good!

Since it's October 1st today I decided to put on the Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Spun For You. They are hard to find in stores so you might have better luck getting the Halloween designs on Ulta! (I just ordered 1 more of the spiderwebs & also the red/black design).


(And thanks Shannon for letting me know they had Halloween Designs out!)

I found the Coffee-Mate Pumpkin Spice creamers on Friday, so I broke one of those out today! (and froze the other.) Yum! It's definitely fall now! :-)

 

Honey got bit by Olive a few weeks ago. It turned into an abscess (which I've dealt with many abscesses over the years with my pet rats & never saw one like this). It started off marble sized, but did swell to quarter size. We were treating Honey with antibiotics (Baytril) and the abscess was drying up into a scab.

Monday when I got home from work, either her abscess had burst on it's own, or she chewed at the wound. She had a hole in her leg a little bigger than a quarter. It looked really really bad & it was really deep. She also kept licking and chewing at the wound, which was making it bleed worse.

Tuesday I called the vet at 9am, and we took Honey to the vet in the afternoon for an exam. Her abscess was badly infected and her chewing on it did not help the infection.

We had to leave Honey overnight at the vet for surgery so the vet could remove the infected tissue and stitch her up. He used metal sutures so she won't chew out her stitches. She also got a Baytril injection & will be on Cipro for 2 weeks. She has a check up next Wednesday evening.

She was doing really well when we picked her up, they had done the surgery late last night. She is pretty active, but will be staying in a smaller "hospital" cage while she heals up. She was boggling on the car ride home, I had the carrier on my lap and was petting her, while my husband was driving home.

Honey after surgery: (click to enlarge photo)


Thank God for Mastercard though... ugh... her surgery was a couple hundred dollars and since I just started back at work on the 12th, (after a 6 week furlough) I don't get my first paycheck until October 3rd. I didn't have enough in checking to cover her surgery. Like I've said many times before, people that think rats are just pocket pets or disposable pets... they require the same care as a cat or dog. And the vet prices are about the same.

(Blog Article: Why Rats!?) 

In other rattie news... Iris' tail has healed up from her infection & her back injury seems to be healed. But I don't think she will regain use in the lower part of her tail. She can move the base to about the middle. She's still pretty active though and doesn't seem to realize her tail is paralyzed.

And Violet moved in with my 5 girls downstairs in the Ferret Nation cage this past weekend. There was some wrestling & a bit of fighting. But she is all settled in now. She is about 3x's the size she was when we got her in August. She's not a little baby anymore. :-)


And just a quick update. You might have heard about the recent Typhoon in the Philippines. Manila was hit really hard, and the photos are just crazy to look at. Like the US Embassy! Places I've been... They are saying Manila has not been flooded like this in decades. My husband's family is okay and they did not get flooded, thank God! We were really worried, since there was a devastating typhoon & flood there just 2 years ago that did effect my husband's family.

Yesterday was the 1st day of fall, one of my favorite seasons. Unfortunately it did not feel like fall AT ALL. There was 94% humidity and it was sticky, humid and rainy. I'm very much over hot and humid weather. It's been an unusually HOT spring/summer this year. I'm ready for cooler weather, hoodies, jackets. Hot pumpkin spice latte's!

At least the stores are stocking with fall and halloween items already! Picked up some baby pumpkins yesterday at Giant Supermarket. I love baby pumpkins! I got 2 orange and 1 white one this year. For some reason though it turned into a real hassle during check out... it took 2 clerks & a manager (who all appeared annoyed) to ring up my 3 for $2 baby pumpkins?! Really?! Sheesh...

I use Retro Camera for Android

I also found one of the new seasonal creamers from Coffee-Mate! Brown Sugar Maple Latte. I had some this morning, it's good. I love maple syrup and it has that flavor.


Shannon posted on my Facebook the other day because she found Halloween Sally Hansen Salon Effects designs! They are too cool looking! She found hers at CVS, so I checked 2 CVS's on Friday. I got the skull ones & there was only 1 silver spiderweb one left! I had a $1 off coupon, but CVS must double coupons because I got $2.00 off my purchase and $5 in coupons for my next visit! (The clerk at CVS was checking out my nails too- hahaha. I had Sally Hansen Insta Dri: Lightning with OPI  black shatter over it. She had never seen the crackle polish in person!)

Photo Credit

So excited to wear them in October! If you haven't tried the Salon Effects- do try. They last 2-3 weeks without chipping! And when they do chip, they start chipping at the base of the nail, not the tip. They are awesome!

Thank you to everyone who entered my Philadelphia Giveaway! And thank you for sharing your favorite thing about your hometown!

I've used random number generator to select a winner out of the 14 valid entries and the winner is....





Congratulations Lynn!!! I will be contacting by private message on Twitter so you can claim your prizes!

I also wanted to let everyone know to keep reading this blog, because I will be having another giveaway soon; where I will be giving away a gift certificate to Fortune Cookie Soap! My cousin Jessica bought me some of their products for my birthday and they smell amazing! Especially the Cupcake Lipbalm & the Cinnamon Rolled soap!

Squid & Fish Teriyaki Jerky. From our Phil-Am order! They have little eyes! Eek! Crunchy... :-p

Hahaha! My husband was on the news today! Channel 6 Action News at 4 has a segment where they feature Facebook Pages of Action News Fans, called Facebook Flash. I told my husband we should fill out the form for him to be featured since he came to Philadelphia in March of this year. And having the Liberty Bell in your profile picture doesn't hurt, haha! ;-)

We were in the kitchen cooking dinner when my Mom called to us and told us F.B. was on the news. We are lucky they upload all the archives onto their website, because we just caught the end of it. My husband's "13" seconds of fame as he says, hahaha! Video Below! He is number 3 in the video!




P.S. Remember my blog giveaway ends 9/16!

Please view this blog entry from the 8th anniversary to read about my personal experience with 9/11.

Rainbow Nails! All Sally Hansen Insta-Dri colors. (Lightning, Speedy Sunburst, Mint Sprint, Brisk Blue, Lively Lilac). I ♥ my nails!

I was inspired to do them after I saw this picture in a Yahoo Article.

Photo Credit

Iris was rough housing with her sisters about a week ago and she got a wound on her tail and on one of her fingers. There's still a scab on her tail. Her tail started getting a splotchy look to it, almost like dried blood- but the color keeps spreading and won't wash off. Last night we noticed she is not using her tail- (Rats use their tails to climb and balance. They can even wrap their tail around your wrist). Her tail was very limp and she doesn't seem to have any feeling in it when you press on it.

I called the vet this morning and we took Iris for her 10:45am appointment. Besides an infection in her tail from the bite wound she also has a lower back injury which was very painful when the vet pressed in the area of her lower back. The back injury is what is causing the paralysis in her tail, because it's all inflamed.

He gave her metacam and antibiotics. We are hoping the tail infection heals, because then he could give her steroids for her back injury. If the infection spreads or gets worse in her tail she could have to have it amputated... Hoping her back injury heals too. I'm not sure if she will get use of her tail again or not though.

Iris: (Her nickname is Ratatouille). ♥

I thought I'd jump on board with Wordless Wednesday. ;-)

Birthday gift from my cousin.