Common Cold and Your Testicles

I know, bet you didn’t see that title coming?

Seriously though, at this time of year, one of my most common search results relates to the common cold and testicles. The reason why — and the most popular result in el Goog — is a pisstake entry I posted in 2006 about someone defacing the common cold wikipedia entry to add the word ‘testicles’.

As a woman, therefore not an owner of a pair of testicles (unless you count Karl’s), I couldn’t possible say if the common cold or flu causes testicular pain. However, given the sheer scale of the search hits to this page (which as I say, increases in the cold seasons) I can only assume that testicular pain due to a cough/cold is quite common despite there being little in Google results pages to support this.

In the interest of science, I did a tiny bit of research and I’ve discovered that WebMD lists the cold as a symptom of testicular pain. However, testicular pain can also be the sign of some pretty severe / nasty sounding illnesses and diseases, so guys… if you’re worried, do yourself a favour and head to the docs. Better to be safe the sorry.

P.s. hot water, lemon & honey should help your other symptoms. Get well soon!

Posted on: December 6, 2013 · Category: Misc 2

Too busy to blog here

But I did write a bit of a ranty post over at WAHMweb (on “having it all”) if you’re bored… I would say beware of swear words but if you read this blog you’re probably used to it by now.

P.s. I’d quite like a full night’s sleep for Christmas, if anyone wants to ply Santa with sexual favours to magic that one up? Much obliged.

Posted on: December 3, 2013 · Category: Misc 0

Little Hoarder

Last week, every time Oliver went to sleep he did so clutching his little orange van.

By the weekend, every time Oliver went to sleep he did so clutching a car and his little orange van.

Today at nap time he went to sleep clutching a red car, a red and white car, and his little orange van.

I’m not entirely sure how he plans to top this…

Posted on: November 27, 2013 · Category: Parenting 3

How to care for 11 animals and not go crazy

After Stephanie asked how we manage all the animals with everything else we’ve got on, and we recently doubled our guinea pig population, I thought it was probably a good time to write about how the hell we care for all these animals without going crazy.

We have a routine

Back when we only had a few pets we’d clean them out when it seemed like a good idea, scoop poop when we remembered etc. It’s not good – so easy to accidentally miss a scooping and wake up to cat shit all over your floor because the highly clean moggies have got peed off at the poop mound in the corner of their tray. These days we have a specific daily routine:

DAILY AM:
– Karl feeds cats & scoops poop while I’m sorting the children’s breakfast
– After Karl has gone to work & Izz to nursery (when applicable) I go outside to check on the bunnies & piggies, top up hay and do any necessary spot-cleans of hutches and trays. If I’m going to be at home all day I let the rabbits out too.

DAILY PM:
– After the kids have gone to bed it’s fresh veg prep for the bunnies & piggies, another round of spot-cleans on hutches and trays (the rabbits are “litter” trained), fresh hay & water all round etc
– Once the outdoor animals are sorted it’s another round of cat food & poop scooping indoors

WEEKLY:
– Litter trays are emptied & scrubbed
– Hutches are emptied & scrubbed
– Water bowls and bottles are scrubbed

We keep on top of cleaning

See above: spot-cleans on hutches etc. It seems like it takes up a lot of time when you explain it, but when you do it twice a day it helps stop poop mounds building up and spreading. It takes a few minutes and is much more hygienic for the animals.

We work together

I sort food bowls while Karl sweeps or vice versa. I sort the kids while Karl sorts the cats. And so on… it’s all about team work. Although the division of labour in this house is definitely not 50/50, it’s certainly heading that way. I absolutely cannot abide the notion that women should be the ones doing all the housework and that applies to animal/pet related chores too. (Don’t get me started!)

We avoid ‘messy’ products

Last but not least, we try and avoid products that make our lives harder. For example, we use a great clumping litter which is a little pricier than most but means that we can scoop a pee out of the tray leaving just clean litter behind (and it doesn’t flick about the place as much as some litters).

For the outdoor animals, we’ve recently switched to ‘vet bed’ instead of woodshavings. Now we can sweep out the pigpig poos using a dustpan and brush, wee is absorbed through to an under layer of paper based litter and the guinea pigs stay clean and tray (same principle for the rabbit litter tray). It turns out that woodshavings are associated with respiratory issues too, so this was a good decision all round.

All that said, it really is just a case of getting off your arse and getting on with it. Actual pet-maintenance doesn’t take more than an hour a day which leaves lots more for cuddling the little furry buggers. :D

Posted on: November 25, 2013 · Category: Pets 4

Mail Form Subscriptions

In case you missed my tweets on the subject: you can now subscribe to receive notifications of updates to my PHP mail form. I actually have a couple of updates to be applied and released within the next week or so, so if you’re using the script subscribe now :)

Posted on: November 21, 2013 · Category: PHP 0