Meet Kiki and Rainie!

We have two little rat additions to our pet family!

Kiki and Rainie

It's kind of a hard story to tell. After my Emi died (08/20/10 - 03/03/13), my boyfriend and I decided that we were going to get two rat babies home when I'm home for the summer. We picked out the names Cubby and Kiki.

On the 3rd of May, we picked up two sweet little rat babies. Kiki quickly adapted to her new home- her cuddly  adventurous personality came out soon after we got her. Tiny Cubby was adorable, but she was shy and timid. When we put her in the cage, she didn't move, but when we held her, she opened up a little and enjoyed being pet. 

We struggled to get Cubby interested in food. From yogurt to fresh peppers, we put several different foods in her cage to try to entice her. Her eyes were bright, she was social, but she wasn't interested in food or water.

On the evening of the 4th, Kareshi and I came home from the store to find Cubby frozen, no longer breathing. My mother thinks that because she was so tiny, she may have not been growing from a heart condition. Kareshi suggest that she may have had something wrong with her digestive system. She was not apparently sick at all. 

We gave our little Princess Cubby a proper burial instead of taking the body back to the pet shop. We didn't think Kiki should be alone, so we picked out another member of their litter and named her Rainie.

It's a tradition to name the next rat we get after the rat that recently passed away. Kiki was named after Emi- they both are Japanese names. Cubby was not named after a rat, rather, an Adventure Time character.

Cubby is the name of the little bear in the episode "Belly of the Beast" (Season 2, Episode 21).

Rainy (we changed the spelling for our rat) is from the episode "Another Way" (Season 3, Episode 23).

Rainie has adapted pretty well to our place. She is a wiggle worm and loves attention and exploring. This Friday, May 17th, we will be introducing Kiki and Rainie to the older rats, Charlotte, Mazie, Mollie, and Rosie. I think they will all get along well. XD

Always proud to be a martial artist.

Myself, sporting my new rank- purple belt.

First training of 2013.

First lame-o cellphone mirror picture of 2013.

Always proud to be a martial artist.

Dice Case: A Dungeons and Dragons Christmas Gift

To my surprise, I was having a very difficult time picking out a Christmas gift for Kareshi. I could think of 1,000 things he would love to have, but none of them felt like the "right" gift for him.

This is what I finally came up with:

A set of Game Science's "high precision" gaming dice, with a customized dice box.

The idea came to me shortly after Thanksgiving. I found the dice set on ThinkGeek, one of my favorite online stores. I sketched rough plans and e-mailed them to my dad. When I got home, we talked through the plans and finalized the design.

We chose to use red oak for the box and walnut for the interior.

After collecting all the materials, the next step, of course, is getting the wood to be the correct size.

We then glued the pieces together to create a complete box. Once the box had dried, the corners were rounded and the box was cut to make two identical halves.

The next part was making the dividers. This was the most challenging part to me. My father had a pretty good idea of how he thought we should do this, but I was totally lost. He had to redo a lot of my work. I am thankful he is patient with me!

We sized and cut strips of wood to fit snugly in our box halves. 

The main tool used to create the notches was the table saw. Now, I don't know technical terms at all, so please bare with me on this explanation. Each of the slots are one inch, so the notches has to be in one inch increments. We put a piece of wood against the fence so that when the wood was pushed against it, the blade would hit at exactly one inch.

Each notch took a little over two and a half cuts.

The wood burning was my favorite step. I did a simple border on the top and a to/from on the bottom. 

I then sanded the halves down so everything was flush.

My father chiseled away little groves for the hinges to fit.

Finally, we finished, waxed, and screwed the hinges and latch on the box.

I am so happy with how this turned out! I also laid some felt in the compartments and sewed a little red pouch to hold the box.

I gave it to Kareshi this morning, and he was speechless! Sometimes, I think dice are the only reason he loves Dungeons and Dragons. XD He loves the dice case and it was totally worth all the work. I cannot wait until we have a chance to play DnD again so he can try them out!

Thrift Store Finds: Sci-Fi Films

Wednesday was my friend's birthday, so a bunch of us got together for a day of one of our favorite activities- thrift store shopping! We went to five stores, and I found a couple really cool things.

I found a really sweet set of the Star Trek movies.

I also found the 15th Anniversary Star Wars Trilogy set.

Here are the books I got: