Friday, September 14, 2012

Day flew by....

So today flew by... for good reason... was busy all day today.  Started off the day working on the cleaning the QC mansion and sanding the shelves.  Once I had that done, off to making poo guards.  So, cut those, attached those. Then I decided, ok, maybe I should look at how that wheel is attached and see if there's a way I could get the powdercoated part off.  So, turns out, it does unscrew, and then you have to hammer it like all heck to get the thing off.  But... I got it off!  Now, I just need to scrub and clean it as good as I possibly can before I take it in. 

So, added some stuff to that cage.  Added a hidey house up on a shelf, some toys, added some wood and interesting stuff to the toys already in the cage, added a few more perches and chews.

Moving on, I completed one of my orders -- of course, ran out of tape right in the middle, so I had to go to Meijer to get more tape.  So I come home, finish packaging up my order. 

So then I decide I should start getting ready the order for the person who's getting the two chins and has her $600 order.  So I start putting that stuff on the side, and I realize I still need to put together her hidey house.  She wanted a cottage one (as everyone seems to, lately), and so I already had the pieces cut out, so I sanded them and went to put them together.  And the one "side" piece that has the big door hole cutout?   Yeah, it cracked in half.  But, elmer's glue is like the duct tape of the chin world, so I slathered some on, stuck one of my fat rubberbands around it, and have it on the side.  Her house will be put together tomorrow, and that piece will be as good as new. 

Was going to start on her cage, but then I realized, I have two people coming tomorrow and everything everywhere.  Like it looked like everything had exploded down there cause I'd accidentally knocked over a plastic food bowl full of food, I had an open bag of trash down there, I had the guinea pig table blocking the one aisle... I had the fake-wood table covered in all sorts of crap....and so on.  So, I thought, ok, I can put the guinea pig stand where it goes, move the fridge onto the guinea pig stand (bottom shelf) and then move the table to accommodate.  Well, here's the thing, that meant moving the guinea pig cage off of the table it was on, and onto another table.  So to move the guinea pig stand into place, I ended up taking a cage off one of the tables (the empty one that the boys had escaped from last night -- which I fixed today with a strategically placed spring clip), scooting Keisa's cage over, scooting Gumdrop and her babies' cage over, and then moving the guinea pig cage (after cleaning it) to that table.  So then, I was able to move the smaller table out of the way, and put the guinea pig table where it goes.  Then I went to move the fridge onto the guinea pig lower table.  Yeah... it's about 2" too tall.  Grrr.  The two stands I have (the run stand and the guinea pig stand) should be exact replicas except for the casters, so I should have known ahead of time that it wasn't going to fit, but oh well.  So now the fridge is currently under the next table over, which the cord BARELY reaches for, as I expected that it would be a lot closer to the outlet (and only bought a 13' cord).  Oh well.

Anyway, so I realized that while the FN/CN cages have stocked up toys, because I just put those in those cages, my run toys were looking a little empty.  And with Myshkin stealing and hoarding toy pieces in his run, his girls need extra pieces for themselves, lol.  So I filled those up, and then realized that two of the cages on the bottom run only had two toys each.  Well, totally not fair to those chins (all the rest had 3) so they got an extra toy each.  And sticks for all of them.

Somewhere among all of this, I cleaned all of the runs, vacuumed all of the FN/CNs, cleaned the guinea pig cage and guinea pig tank (for Pixie), cleaned the rat cages, moved the male rat babies (7 weeks-ish) to the second cage on our rat stack, and cleaned Ally & Lola's cage.  So I think the only thing NOT cleaned was the prairie dog cage (which I did like yesterday? day before?) and Delilah's cage.  And hers will be cleaned once I get to it.....

So then, all of my spare wood (by spare wood, I mean the cut-up pieces that aren't big enough for much) had overflowed and ripped through the bag I was using to hold it (next to the table saws), so I went and got another bag, and went through every piece.  If the piece was 2" for at least, say, 6", I put it on the side (for poo guards).  So now I have a nice pile of potential-poo-guard pieces, I found some triangle corner pieces that I cut out, which I may use as corner shelves, or just sell as a one-time thing.  And all the other wood was neatly arranged in the new bag so it'll be there when I get a chance to cut it up.

Didn't do much with my zebra/leopard cage.  Decided that it'd be good with a hay holder (the one I made with the dowels) so I attached those, but I still really need that flying saucer in there, cause I can't tell if I have enough room for a hidey house or not.  I need to work on making shelves for that cage.

So then, somewhere in all of this, I got a call that showed up as New Mexico.  Didn't answer it at the time, was busy doing something, but later I noticed they left a voicemail.  Saying this is so and so, wanted to know if we still had the chinchilla for sale (which one?), call me back at xxx-xxxx.  Point is, there was no area code.  So, I tried the number she gave me with a 219-area code, got a cadillac dealership.  Tried the number she gave me with the area code that showed up on the phone (as the number she was calling from).  Number out of service.  So, I called back the number she called me at and left a message.  No idea if she'll get it or not, but that's all I could do.  So here's a word to the wise.  If you call me, and you want me to call you back at a number DIFFERENT than the one you are using to call me, please give me not only your phone number, but your area code.  If you are out of state, heck, even if you're in Chicago, I may try 219, I may try 708.  Other than those I don't know any local area codes, and I especially don't know yours if you're out of state.  Like far out of state like New Mexico.  So please, give me a phone number with area code.

On the note of "another odd phone thing" -- I tried to call up Kelly tonight (the $600 order person).  She had called a few days ago wanting to know how the boys were doing, and asking if a certain cage we had would be a good travel cage.  Well, I was betting she didn't look at the dimensions, cause the cage she had mentioned was like a gerbil cage, not a chinchilla cage.  So I called her back, said how the boys were doing, suggested a different cage, and asked for her to call me back.  That was several days ago now.  Well, so I never heard back.  So today, I called her, just to ask if she had thought about which cage she wants (so I don't sell it if she's already picked out one) and all that, and to tell her that I was getting her stuff ready.... but again, no answer, and I left a voicemail.  So hopefully she'll call me back.  I checked the number, and I am dialing the right number, so I know I'm not losing my mind. 

Let's see, what else did I do.  I vacuumed like everything downstairs.  I went through my "rescue box" -- when people donate supplies for the rescue, I put it aside in a specific tote to make sure only the rescues get it -- and doled out the goods.  Gave everyone water and food.  I need to hook up a second water bottle on the blue FN, cause with three chins in there, it's practically done every day. 

So, I moved most of the crap from that table-in-the-middle-of-the-room to the one that's by the stacked runs, so now, Pixie is on the middle table, and a few other things, but it's mostly empty.  Once I get it cleared off, it can go back upstairs and back to the garage.

Oh!  Pixie is walking *happy dance* -- I'm still going to give her her oral prednisolone until I run out, which may be another week or two, but better safe than sorry.  Let's keep the swelling down and keep my piggie improving.  Very happy for her. She even was more like herself today when I went to give her her meds, she was struggling more, like the way she did when she had all working feet, versus the way she would just let me do whatever when she couldn't move her back feet.  I made sure to not drop her this time, when I was moving her to another cage so I could clean hers.

Well, I think that's it.  When I left, it looked halfway decent down there.  So maybe I'll just need to do a quick vacuum when I get up and I'll be ready for my first person.  Oh and I need to get the food and the goodie bag ready for that, but tonight I had to take up all the trash (for trash day tomorrow) and take down all the wood I just bought (60 ft) and the boxes I unloaded from the trunk, so I did all of that, and now it's time to go upstairs and watch X Factor.  The cleaning will undoubtedly still be there tomorrow.  But at least now, all the cages (in use) are clean!! 

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