Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts

Friday, February 6, 2015

My Little Dictator....I mean Piggy



  How many of you have been trained by a guinea pig? How many of you make a noise in your bedroom to here the high pitched squeaks from a guinea pig in the kitchen? This noise is equal to the noises rodents make before a snake eats them, except my rodent is sitting safely in his cage demanding his drug of choice, also known as carrots. Normally he makes those cute little chortling noises that make it seem as if he is talking to you and only his opinion matters. But after six long agonizing hours after he ate his last carrot, he almost climbs up the side of his wire cage while screaming as he is if he is going to die or something trying to get him. 
  Ignoring his tantrum only lasts for so long. My refrigerator makes a weird deep humming sound, and when you open the door it makes a squeaky sound similar to Piggy. Because my guinea pig lives so close to this box he has learned to pay a lot of attention to it. Also he has learned that most of the time if he hears the sound of the fridge door open then a piece of carrot usually will fall from the sky into his cage. Now even when he is not scheduled to eat and he hears the fridge door open he starts with shrieking and the cage wall climbing. Some of this is my fault, but when a Piggy learns something they don't ever really un-learn it. He has learned the same way Pavlov's dogs learn to drool at the sound of a bell, when I was working more hours the only time the fridge door opened was when I was home and that was only twice a day. So now when I have a mixed schedule or come home early, guess what the little dictator....I mean Piggy wants, he is hooked on carrots like a meth addict. 
 I have tried other things, broccoli and lettuce have come close to satisfying he demands. Yet there is nothing so funny as throwing a big piece of dikon radish, which is the same hardness and is a root vegetable, and see him sniff it then go right back to begging and complaining that he wants food. I have also discovered that he has this habit of sniffing his food bowl when he is not climbing up the side of his cage. If he gets any fatter, he could play Jaba the Hut in the Lego man version of Star Wars. Normally he looks so cute curled up on side sleeping in the wood chips, but when he hears the fridge door open....lights, curtain, action, it's show time like a scene from Les Miserable of the lonely beggar dying from hunger. It has been only four hours since the last time he was given a carrot longer than his own body and he had dry kibble still in his dish....I hear guinea pig is a delicacy in South American countries.


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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Hand Made In The USA

 Strangest Knitted Creations: Chicken Sweater to Crocheted Bikini
  
  If you think about it not many people make anything any more. They might make their own food, like lunch for work or dinner for when guests come over, but ordinary every day things are always bought from large department stores. Not many people knit their own socks, crochet their own blankets, sew their own pillow cases, or weave their own wash cloths. The idea of being able to take care of oneself and others seems to be such a foreign idea in today's culture.
  These concepts are not completely unheard of in the Amish and Prepper communities, but they have a religious purpose for their preferred lifestyle. The average American cannot do for themselves, and if there was ever a meat shortage how quickly so  many of them would be in support of gun ownership and hunting. It's strange to think about how obsessed we are with fashion, but only a select few can actually make a sweater with two needles and some yarn. We have become such a lazy society that no even tries to learn any more, except for then directions to the nearest Walmart. 
  Most consumers have grown accustomed to the cheap mass produced quality that foreign countries offer, yet at the same time craft supplies are not cheap and they do not sell manufacturer quality supplies to the general public (unless you buy it in $500 lots). To quote Rebecca Alidre Holmes-Anderson, "Most anyone would rather pay $20 at a big box store for a sweater than what it would cost to make it. It’s society’s way of thinking that ‘DIY’ is cheaper than buying the product, and often that’s the case, but with most needle crafts, it’s not.” It usually costs $20 for the yarn alone to make an adult sized sweater, not including labor.
  This supply and demand has made so many of us reject the idea that we can take the same tools and supplies to make the same things ourselves for the same price and we can't. Because China is cheaper and the US believes in minimum wage, we no longer try as hard to make things for ourselves. Of course a sweater is cheaper if it only cost a company in China 3 cents an hour to make plus $1.50 in yarn, and $3 in shipping costs to the United States. 
  The only way I can make a sweater as cheap as that is by going to yard sales and thrift shops, and buying already made sweaters that I will recycle the yarn from. I know of a store where I can buy out of season sweaters for 50 cents, then turn them into things I need, like socks, scarves, and wash clothes. There is a will with a way. 

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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Searching For Shiny Objects

Once my youngest sister told a boy who had a crush on one of her other sister that the best gift for her would a 'shiny object'. As if anything reflective would be good enough, as if  a pair of fishing lures would be the same as a pair earrings. After considering this bit of sarcasm, I had to agree that a shiny object would be a good gift for our sister, especially since my own gift to her was shiny. Yet I had to reflect on this observation: aren't we all in search of shiny objects? There will always be the girl who squeals over her newly purchased discounted mass produced piece of jewelry, there will always be that person who searches for that ray of sunshine to eliminate the darkness, there will always be that person who finds their inner light so that they will never be dark again.


Still in search of shiny objects that make life a little brighter.

If you need Shiny background for TWITTER:

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