Petie Bunny

RoyBoy and I have two rabbits: Petie, our older, fat bunny, and Orion, our younger, frisky bunny. Petie is a greedy little pig. He loves to eat, and especially loves to devour fresh-cut veggies. The other day RoyBoy and I had salad with dinner. I had a little left over, so RoyBoy put it on the floor for the rabbits. The next day, Petie wouldn't get out of his cage. Not even for banana.

Now, you have to understand: Banana is like crack to Petie. He LOVES banana, and has some EVERY morning. Not eating banana in the morning makes Petie angry. The fact that Petie was refusing banana was worrisome. I did some research.

Did you know that rabbits cannot have dairy? They can't digest it. It makes them pretty sick. There was some ranch dressing on the salad RoyBoy left for them. I can just imagine it: Petie hops over to investigate the bowl of food, and finds some ranch. "Hm, what's this?" *lick* "WOW! That's yummy! I'm a fat bunny, and I will eat this!" Later: "Ugh, I feel sick."

That whole day, Petie just hung out in a cage. I force-fed him water and let him rest. In my experience, tummy-issues need to sort themselves out. I watched him, of course, to ensure I didn't need to rush him to the vet.

Luckily, Petie felt better by that evening. He left his cage, started drinking more water on his own, and finally ate banana. By the next morning, he was completely better and demanding his morning banana.

Pumpkin Muffins

I love to bake. I love fall. I find pumpkins fun. These three likes mean thing: Pumpkin Muffins! Yeah! I started with the ideas that I wanted to make muffins and I wanted to get a pumpkin. I got a small sugar pumpkin and found a delious recipe online. Then I decided they needed something. By something, I mean cream cheese frosting with honey. Oh. Yum. Delish delish delish!

Pumpkin Muffins with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
Muffins
1 small sugar pumpkin
3 c flour
2 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
½ tap baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground clove
2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp allspice
½ tsp salt
2/3 c vegetable oil
3 eggs

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Cut the pumpkin in half, discarding the seeds and stringy bits. Bake the pumpkin, cut side down, wrapped in tinfoil, until tender: About 90 minutes.
2. Scoop the pumpkin meat from the halves and puree in a blender. (NOTE: The original recipe said to use only 2 cups of the pumpkin puree; I used it all.) Beat in the vegetable oil and eggs.
3. Blend ALL dry ingredients (flour through salt).
4. Mix the puree mix into the dry ingredients.
5. Scoop the batter into muffin pans and bake 20 – 25 minutes at 350 degrees, until a knife or toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Honey Cream Cheese
8 oz cream cheese, softened
¼ c honey
-- Blend the cream cheese and honey until creamy.

Sicky-Poo

For the past two weeks I have slowly been getting sick. It started out as something weird with my nose: It was always dry, like it was being drained, but nothing was draining. Then my ears were blocked, causing pain in my Eustachian tubes. Next, my throat started hurting in the morning and evening. Most recently my throat has been hurting all day, but the most in the morning and night.

In the beginning I started taking allergy meds, thinking that was the problem. Then I started taking cold med syrups. Yesterday I got more cold syrup and sinus pills.

This morning I woke up with more throat pain than before. It was bad enough that I couldn't eat breakfast. I made a smoothie and hoped it would help, but it only kind of helped. I cancelled the subsitute position I had and went to back to bed. I feel better now, kind of, but I'm sticking with cold liquids.

I don't have health insurance. I'm not on anyone's plan at the moment. I called an ear, nose, and throat specialist, but it would be $110. At least. Now I'm looking over health care plans from United Health One, Blue Cross Bluse Shield, and Cigna. I can't make heads or tails of it. They seem so similar! RoyBoy will ahve to look at it. I can't get a hold of my parents, or I'd ask them. I'm annoyed. I also have to work tonight, but the manager on duty said she'd try to get me out as soon as she could.