Let Me Get On With It

Today is Day 7 of the blogging challenge however because i skipped yesterday i'm on #6. i have been procrastinating doing this post because, honestly, this question completely overwhelms me. just the word "pet" sets my head spinning but include in the same sentence "love" and "keep" and my mind is running a cazillion miles a minute which increases my heart rate, brakes me out into a cold sweat, and almost sends me to bed with an anxiety attack. read on and perhaps you will get the idea.

#6. A Photo of An Animal You Love to Keep As a Pet.

what is this asking anyways? is this asking for a photo of a current pet? or this asking for a photo of a dream pet? i have developed quite a love/hate relationship with pets in the past 5 years or so. mainly because of these...

yes i know. they are super cute and fun and a joy and blessing and my little miracles but they are WORK. these critters require everything a pet requires; to be fed, sheltered, showed affection, and kept updated on their vaccinations. by the time i'm done caring for these gals and a dude, i'm out. i don't feel like i've got leftovers to spend on a "pet". so we don't have any right now.

of course, we recently moved so there is this. yes, it is really ours...pretty, eh?

we have plans for this, which i will refer to as the "back 5" which is really probably closer to 7. let me specify...acres. it just sounds better to say the back 5 or the front 5. there's about 10.5 all together and part of the front 5 has been designated for the garden. most of "OUR" plans are really SUPERMAN's plans. his big dream is to get one of these... sometime i'll show ya' how superman looked AFTER he held this guy...

he would also like some of these...




and maybe these...

We've briefly discussed this:

i'm not sure if he's keen on it though.

can you hear me moaning with excitment yet?

this is the ironic part. people who grew up with me may tell you its seems crazy that i'm anti-pet now. thats because my whole life from the time i was 12 to 21 basically revolved around animals and my love for them. but honestly, now, i can't remember Why.The Heck. i liked 'em so much.

back then, i showed sheep with the FFA...i think the most sheep i had at one time was 20 or so, after the lambing.

i obsessively, compulsively, would NOT give up on getting a job as a veterinary assistant. i was determined that i would be a veterinarian.

i lived and worked on a government operated sheep ranch for two springs and a summer. its amazing that i didn't morph into a sheep, i loved 'em that much. actually, i'd like to think i was a pretty darn good shepherd (there's a difference between a sheep herder and a shepherd). i was literally a sheep midwife, having delivered somewhere in the range of three to four hundred lambs.

so what? my priorities changed. i decided to go on a proselyting mission for the church i am devoted to instead of pursue vet school. can you believe i was assigned to Australia, one of the world's top producers of lamb meat and wool. when i go home a year and half later, though i didn't change my declared major, i did change the emphasis of my major from vet tech to food industry (primarily studies in human foods) in order to marry superman. within 18 months, i became a mother. my prioritys have became serving God and my family.

now, i am feeling compelled to say that our "pet history" has not been great; perhaps interesting though.

our first pet as a married couple was a coati mundi a.k.a south american racoon. yep, his name was taz, short for tazmanian devil, cuz he acted like one. we kept him for about a year until he decided to jump on Q.'s head one day and superman thought maybe it'd be safer to sale him. yes, superman has a fascination with exotic primates. this is one of those things i found out AFTER the honeymoon...i think? maybe not...heck i don't remember.

That is THE TAZ. the actual one. in our smalltown backyard tree. this is NOT A JOKE! Our first venture into pet owner's territory was a testosteronal, hyped-up exotic animal who was neurotically attached to superman. remind me to write about him sometime. he's got a great story.

Next, we dabbled in fish for a bit...that was neat until superman discovered the not-so-joys of cleaning the tank every month. when Q. decided to clean the tank herself by pouring a bottle of cleaner in, it almost killed the algae eaters. i mean, one was dead and somehow superman revived him. guess he got him outta' there in the nick of time. thankfully, some nice people at church had a need for the algae eaters in their own big, empty tank. the other fish had gotten sick and died of who knows what.

then superman brought home thomas, named for thomas the train (Q. was obsessed at the time). turns out thomas used up all his 9 lives within a year (no kidding that cat was into all kinds of trouble) cuz one day he turned up shot and very dead. needless to say, that was sad for the kids. ('cept i don't recall audi crying at all). Q. still had dreams about thomas long after he was gone.


our last walk into pet-hood was with me-me, a crazy jack russel mutt puppy the runts and superman begged, cajoled, and finally caved me into accepting when i was hugely pregnant with sunny. the proof about how much we DISLIKED her is in the fact that i have not one picture of that maniac dog. shortly after we moved to the missouri countryside, superman decided he'd had enough of her dragging in the neighbors' belongings and shredding dirty diapers all over the front 5, that he, well let me just say, she doesn't live with us anymore...NO! he did NOT shoot her...she's just...gone. all kinds of stuff can happen to a dog in the country. just ask the neighbors.

i have one runt in love with these. we were so happy when gramma decided to give hers to someone else (p.s. this is not the one gramma had):




we've already been promised one of these (he's actually probably needing to be picked up anyday now):

AND finally last but not least, our most interesting, upcoming new pet project will be this (once again, this is no joke*cringe and a hard swallow*):

THIS, my friends, is a story for another day. just one more to add onto the growing list that i will have to do once this 30 day thing is over. maybe i should just stick with this? do you think i can get away with it?