Vivarium beautification...

I'm working on a project for an old neglected friend. Ichabod, my bearded dragon, has had a rough life. When I got him in 2004 I wanted to make his life better and have done so in all the ways that I could. This project is something I have wanted to do for a long time but I never had a work space to do it.

I sketched out a design and bought the supplies. I cut the pieces of polystyrene foam and assembled the design with toothpicks, then glued everything, and tried to keep it level.

Then I coated everything with tile grout and sealed it with grout sealant, so it's waterproof.

Here is my current progress...



Tonight I will spray paint it. It will need a few days to air dry before it can go into his tank.

I am really happy with the results so far!

I bought some old rock planters for vivariums at a reptile show a few years ago and will use one for a live plant in his new space. I'm even thinking about changing his substrate to sand, but I'm approaching that decision carefully because I have mixed feelings about using sand for a number of health reasons.

While I've been consumed with this project the dogs have been antsy. My normally lazy and well behaved Osa has turned into a wild frog. Stealing tissues off tables and tearing them up.





Surprisingly Otto just lounges on the couch and sucks his blanket. Yes, I know it's kind of weird. Some dogs do it. He sucks the blanket, makes bread, and occasionally cries into the blanket. It knows all of his secrets.




I should have pictures of the completed project by next week. I'm also nearly finished with my blanket project and looking forward to starting on more gifts for the holidays. I already feel behind on my knitted gifts. Christmas is only 5 months away! Time is short when it takes 2-3 weeks to complete something and I need to get my ass in gear!

Blog fail

I am a failure because I have a blog called "A Million Little Fibers" and I have posted one measly blog with a fiber project. Not to mention that the project I posted months ago is still a work in progress because I ran out of yarn and can't seem to find a retailer that carries it. In the basket it sits. Collecting dust on a shelf. Poor lonely unfinished scarf without a neck to call its own.

Fail!

So, I have a coworker that is expecting a baby girl in September. I took along a baby blanket project for the plane ride to Mexico and by the time I got home I had a good 6 inches of blanket. Soft, cream colored, machine washable, baby blanket. I won't go into the details of the death of my project but it wasn't too pretty. I will not drink red wine and knit ever again! That is for sure.

But my mishap payed off because I found a much more interesting yarn and through some dedicated effort I am a good 8" into my 33" masterpiece.

I will post pictures later. For now, the pattern and the yarn:





Caron simply soft baby brights






I will post my progress later when I can take a picture of it with my good camera. I'm really into this project. It's sitting in my car right now so I can work on it at lunch time and I struggle with not breaking it out while sitting in traffic. It's really, really, hard. But I think that would be worse than texting while driving...When I consider these things I have to stop myself and think about how ridiculous it would be if I crashed my car while making a blanket and my Mother had to tell everyone that her daughter died while knitting at the wheel.

Maiden voyage

This past month has been really busy. We've been preparing for a trip to Mexico since last year and because we don't travel much and have never been out of the country there was a lot of stuff to acquire and ends to tie up.

Passports, snorkeling items, luggage, arrangements for dog boarding and having to change their diet a month before boarding because no one will accommodate raw feeders. Then throw in car issues with an end result of Brian and I both purchasing new vehicles...we were up to our necks in obligations and grudge purchases.

So, this trip became something of a dreaded voyage rather than a trip to be enjoyed and a time to unwind. We were also traveling with friends, who were gracious enough to offer a room in their timeshare condo. We later learned the perils of traveling with friends, but we enjoyed the trip nonetheless. I don't mean to seem like we didn't have a good time. Mexico was really awesome. The condo was beautiful, the weather was beautiful, we did a ton of cool shit, and I really can't complain about anything. Here are some photos!

Condos on the resort...We were staying one hour south of Cancun, in Quintana Roo






The condo balcony was bigger than our living room, and it overlooked the pool



One of my personal favorites....lizards everywhere! They liked to eat bananas.



We went to a neat eco-park called Xcaret (Ish-caret). Most of it was just hiking on paths through jungles, with featured areas, like orchids, butterflies, caves with bats, and marine life exhibits.

Orchid enclosure


This is where the orchid babies live...



Jungle paths..








When we did the river ride we would go through caves. All I could think of was the part in Charlie and the chocolate factory...

Round the world and home again

That's the sailor's way

Faster faster, faster faster

There's no earthly way of knowing

Which direction we are going










Turistas! we're loud and we're proud




The resort had dolphins. Which Brian and I felt really bad for. Espescially after seeing that film "The Cove"
They were sectioned off in a harbor area and weren't confied in cement tanks but it still felt strange. All of the restaurants overlooked the dolphin areas so every morning we ate breakfast and watched people pay $100 to swim with them. I don't think I would choose a resort with a dolphinarium the next time we travel. I have moral objections to it. I don't really care if that sounds pompus, it's how I feel.

There were babies that had been born that week. They looked like little tunas swimming next to their mother.




And that's a summary of our maiden voyage out of the US. Now that we have passports we hope to travel all over the place. I'm looking at Puerto Rico next. I had a lot of fun snorkeling and want to do that again! After seeing the water down there and snorkeling I don't know if I can ever enjoy an East Coast beach ever again.