Phew! I'm HOME!

Well, some of you may know that I am a bit of a traveler. Lately I have referred to myself as a gypsy, because since summer I have not been in one place longer than four weeks at a time--usually I am moving from place to place every two weeks. My original home is in Tennessee, but after meeting my boyfriend from Yorktown, VA sometime last May, I moved next to my grandparents' house in Amherst County, VA in order to be closer to him.

I have been commuting from Amherst to Yorktown and vice versa regularly--and yes, I have brought all of my geckos and snakes with me every time. When I first started doing these trips, I would leave my snakes behind since they can go a little while without being checked on, but then I would be anxious about them the whole time I was gone!

Before Thanksgiving I had just done a 2 week stint in Yorktown and drove all the way from Yorktown to Maryville, TN: a nine hour trip with my car packed full of geckos and snakes and art stuff and the list continues. Then a few days after I arrived in Maryville, I traveled with my dad to see his family in Plains, GA (hometown of Jimmy Carter--and yes, our family knows him!) We stayed there from Wednesday and left Saturday...back to TN. Then in TN I drove to see friends two separate days--both days an hour drive to them and then an hour drive back to my parents!

Now I am finally back in my homey little cabin in Amherst County, VA, and BOY AM I GLAD TO BE HERE. But like the kook I am I decided to move all the furniture around before moving all of my stuff back in. Also I accumulated a few animals on my trip...so now I am fitting MORE reptiles in my one room house in the mountains. (I can't lie, I love it!)

I am sooooooo glad to finally sit down. My house is clean. My dogs are sleeping. Every gecko and snakes is in its own pristine home with clean water and full bellies from a recent feeding. Everything is unpacked, my Xbox 360 is set up...this is the life. Time to veg.

P.S. I can't adequately express how much work it is to pack everything, load everything, travel, unload, unpack...almost weekly. I guess it keeps me in shape though, lol!

You know its nice to see that there are other people that care about there animals that much. your a good person, but darn you move around a lot.. enjoy your down time.

I love coming home, hate leaving even more. I use to patrol 8-9 months out of the year and it would drive me nuts and the only pet I had at that time was a car

Haha, thanks Steve! As for the friends--with one girl I helped feed snakes all day, and with the other girl I cleaned all of her gecko tubs and fed them since she just had a baby.

I have to say that even people who seem to have everything together don't keep their animals as clean and well fed as we'd like to think. I don't know about you guys, but I think if every single animal's tub is bone dry and full of urine and feces, the animals are not being properly cared for.

On the other hand, I have the advantage of HAVING to clean cages very frequently since I move all the time. That helps! Haha.

And Nick--I can identify with that. I went to live in Cyprus for over a month, and it drove me nuts not to have any animals, especially since they have stray cats all over their country. Haha.

Glad you are home and settled back in!!! I love moving and I love change but the next move we hopefully do in the spring should be the last move for a while since we will be able to save a crap load of money and expand our collection and such.

I do feel that bonde dry and urine/feces filled tubs is not being properly cared for... we spot clean every week, fresh water every day, and completely clean the tubs every 2 weeks or sometimes sooner depending if its one of our bigger messy girls... if we start with one we end up doing them all... even if it ends up that we are up until 11at night and i dont get much sleep before getting up for work... our snakes are like my babies and I check on them multiple times a day to make sure their living conditions are acceptable.... atleast your friend has someone like you to help

Stephanie that's so great to hear. I know how you feel about them being your babies. If one of mine doesn't eat, I stress and stress over it. of course with ball pythons that means I'm stressing all the time...hahaha.

This is a change of topic but I am really curious to hear what your picture is. Is that your daughter?

It is my daughter. I took her to a Yellowcard/Good Charlotte concert in Norfolk a few months back and she got to meet Yellowcards drummer. In High School Yellowcard was my favorite band so its a tradition I like to say since I have pictures with all the band members lol.

Oh that's cool. I remember that band.

Yeah my best friend and I traveled the east coast after high school lol groupies lmao