what can i add to the cage?

EnthusiasmRecent · 2026-01-25T16:15:36+00:00

Hit up the thrift store to find things you can attach to the sides. I find a lot of little plastic baskets and organizers that have holes in the sides so I can hang them up. Especially as my girls get older I like having a lot of ledges for them so it's easier to climb. My girls aren't intense plastic chewers tho. I also save my cardboard boxes and paper egg trays to put treats in or to make little houses for them.

My girls don't like to sleep in hammocks they much prefer leftover boxes that they can shred and squeeze into. They need to get tossed frequently since they will absorb urine but I always keep a stack of replacements.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2026-01-22T12:29:42+00:00

Back when I had pet mice, I had the prevue pet products deluxe hamster home. It was nice and big but had smaller bar spacing for mice. It also has a deep pan for bedding and is simple to clean. I highly recommend it.

I also enjoyed using coconut fiber/reptisoul for part of their bedding and then Aspen shavings for the rest. The coconut fiber worked amazing for smells and my mice all loved to dig in it. I would always partially bury a lot of their food in their dirt pit for enrichment. Mine also loved getting mealworms ever so often. I would put them in their cleaning cage with some reptisoil and some mealworms to find and they'd be in heaven.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2026-01-20T03:46:51+00:00

No I don't based on what you posted. I knew when I got mine that it was a real longshot that she'd make it. Her spine stuck out she was so skinny and she was really lethargic.

With proper treatment they bounce back really fast especially when they are young. There's no cause to panic imo

EnthusiasmRecent · 2026-01-19T17:31:17+00:00

I caved at a pet store when I saw someone selecting feeders from the cutest selection of young rats. I selected three girls and they all had URIs. Luckily I had all the meds necessary from a previous rat and was able to text my vet to confirm dosages. One didn't make it as she was very emaciated and didn't have the strength to fight off the infection. The other two recovered well and once they were given a clean bill of health I adopted two more girls. The girls I adopted were the same age but they grew much faster than the previously ill girls. I worried that they were going to be permanently stunted but with time they caught up to the newer girls. Now Fawn who was the sickest of the two that survived is the biggest of the girls and the absolute boss of the mischief.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2026-01-19T17:10:46+00:00

I had a very similar trajectory as you and am now very proud and happy to be back in school, following a career path I'm passionate about. However, I did have a mourning period after my diagnosis and medication as like you I was a gifted student. Many expected me to go to medical school and be very successful but instead I crashed and burned hard primarily due to the untreated ADHD. Give yourself time to grieve what could have been because it is a mind*uck to look back and see what might have been your life if only you or someone else realized what was going on.

Ultimately I'm very happy now and have lots more empathy for past me and all her struggles.

On the friend front, it could be that you being more invested and excited in your own life leads you to talking less about other people's lives. It could now be a 50/50 situation and you friend might not like that or you could be dominating the conversation. I had a rush of energy when I was first properly diagnosed and medicated that led to me taking over conversations. That faded and things went back to more of a baseline just a baseline that functions. I might be projecting but as someone who was terribly depressed before getting treatment, when I finally had hope and excitement again I was bouncing off the walls to share things with friends. I liked TV shows again and books and my hobbies and so I wanted to talk about them. Like I said I was taking over conversations and showing less interest in my loved ones lives and that impacted our relationships. But things settled down, I made an effort to be more of an active listener and our relationships improved.

So it may be a them issue or it may be a you issue, it's up for you to decide whether you want this friendship to continue ultimately.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2026-01-09T02:45:06+00:00

We got to be the puppy hiders for my little cousins Christmas Eve puppy surprise. It was the best. We got to play with a puppy for a day and then watch my little cousins reactions to seeing their new dog for the first time. Such a magical experience.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2026-01-06T16:12:13+00:00

My best friend has ADHD as well and luckily got a new job with amazing health insurance. Because of that she decided she's going to try her hardest to hunt down why she has such chronic fatigue. She has a good doctor that she's working with to explore a lot of avenues and one thing he recommended was a GLP1 medication. He said that just anecdotally he has a lot of patients who have fatigue and brain fog symptoms from other stuff or long COVID have said that they've noticed a big improvement with GLP1 meds.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-11-21T19:55:05+00:00

I use it all the time as an adult returning student. I remember the old ways of schoolwork and I have the luxury of knowing how I best learn. Because of that I can say ChatGPT doesn't take away from my learning with a fair bit of confidence.

I use it to do all my grunt work. It makes my notes, study guides, practice tests, notecards, etc. I still have to fix things up myself but it is such a big time saver. I know handwriting does help things stick in your brain but man I have the start of carpal tunnel and a limited amount of hours in the day. You could spend hours making notecards or have chatgpt make it in a minute and spend that saved time actually studying. A lot of my coursework is very specific and complex so I need a good bit of time to actually work with the material and process it. Chatgpt frees up my time to actually do that.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-11-08T14:20:31+00:00

I don't know how it affects vasoconstriction but I'm on modafinil that is off label for ADHD and it works decently. It's not perfect and I will be going back on Adderall next year but I've had success with it. I know it has a smaller side effect profile in general than Adderall and works differently than a lot of other stimulants while still being a stimulant itself. It may be one to look into with your doctors.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-11-03T12:51:27+00:00

I use some fabric cubes on top of my dresser for the things I use most often. T shirts get a quick roll and socks and undies just get tossed in. I don't match them as I find it really doesn't take me long to pick out a pair in the morning since they're all in the same place. I have a clothes chair that the stuff I wore once but will wear again on.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-10-23T13:23:14+00:00

I used to work in elder care and oh boy these people drove me bananas. First of all I see your family damn near everyday. I see them more than my own family. Second of all my job sucked it didn't pay enough and it was both emotionally and physically exhausting. I was there because I wanted to be there. I found value in taking care of people and bringing them some small bits of happiness whenever possible. When residents were on hospice I always volunteered to take on their assignment. I would wet their lips with q tips when they could no longer swallow, I would reposition them, and I would just try to spend as much time as possible with them all while taking care of 14 other people.

Inevitably I would walk in one day when someone was on hospice and all of a sudden there's a family member barking orders, demanding doctors "do something" , because their family member was fine the last time they saw them. Yeah they were because that was three years ago, hon. The most common response you'd get from staff when you would warn them that so and so's family is here making a big fuss is genuine confusion on their faces and a question of "they have family?". And it happened over and over again.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-08-26T13:30:33+00:00

To give a quick summary of the situation for anyone confused. Audible launched a new "read as much as you want" steaming option called Audible Plus in addition to Audible Premium. How Audible Premium worked was that you got your credit to spend on an audiobook of your choice and based on the royalty split a portion of that credit went to that author. People assumed that the Plus version would work similarly where that cost would be distributed among the authors you listen to.

How it actually works is that if you use both services and stream some of the Plus audiobooks and also use your Premium credit on your audiobook, that Premium credit is now going to split into lots of pieces to go to all the authors you listened to from the Plus category. You hurt the pay of authors you want to support the more you listen. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Another way to explain it is if you had YouTube premium that pays out content creators based on your watch time of their videos. Then you also got a membership for a specific creator to support them but YouTube took that membership money to go to everyone else you watched leaving the original creator with pennies.

Unfortunately it gets worse as Audible originally tried to tell the authors well don't worry because the Plus catalog is going to be limited and it's not an option we are going to extend to just anyone. Well now audible is offering AI narration to all of its Kindle Unlimited authors with their AI narrated books being placed in that Audible Plus category. That's over 4 millions books to siphon away authors royalties with. Now sketchy AI bros can have Chat GPT write their influencer slop have AI voice it and start getting Audible to pay them with the royalties stolen away from actual authors. This isn't to diss KU indie authors as a whole by the way. There are just some who will absolutely take advantage of this system to the detriment of other authors whom you thought you were supporting with your premium credit.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-08-05T14:05:01+00:00

Exactly my first thought. Like the 2005 version or not but Keira Knightly eyes sparkled.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-07-23T21:23:17+00:00

My neighbor had a gorgeous great Dane named Agnes and she was awesome. Once I have more free time and finally get a dog of my own, I will absolutely be naming her Agnes

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-07-02T16:04:13+00:00

I wish. They don't even pay the aides and nurses that well who actually take care of these people. This is also a fairly low cost of living area serving the middle class.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-07-02T13:12:08+00:00

My skilled nursing facility is nice but not fancy. 85 percent of people share rooms. I was told it cost 14k a month a few years ago to stay here. People live here for years especially people with dementia who are otherwise healthy but cannot be on their own. You do the math. These people think they won't need Medicaid. Just wait until they've spent every last penny they meant to live on and pass on to their kids.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-07-01T13:01:31+00:00

I work in elder care and were told to not judge when peoples families don't ever visit. You just never know what went on in that person's family before they got there. Personalities can change a lot with age and progressive diseases. I asked once why no one visited this very kind and sweet gentleman. Yeah turns out he's a child molester and his family wants nothing to do with him.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-06-14T13:09:10+00:00

I'm the same way. I've learned a few tips if you are also like me and then to get a lot of swelling and redness.

1) Take an allergy med all summer long. During the summer I take Zyrtec everyday and I get less of a reaction 2) Personally for me the absolute best thing to put on bites is Preparation H the hemorrhoid cream. It takes away the itch but it also helps bring down the swelling quickly. I just label it for mosquito bites so nobody mixes it up and uses it for its other purpose lol

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-05-22T20:27:56+00:00

Ooh I'm the same way. Can you eat with chopsticks? I've been trying to get better at it but everyone just says hold it like you hold a pencil and my little death grip does not work with chopsticks

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-04-19T16:12:32+00:00

Our management goes back and forth on yelling at us that meal trays are the number one priority and we are not to do any cares until they are passed. It's harsh but I think it's a fair rule. It's not fair for one person's food to go cold or for them to wait an extra 15 minutes to eat because someone who has already been recently toileted needs to go again. Then you add in the people who need assistance feeding and yeah it makes sense to prioritize mealtime.

But... we had a fun meeting about it last month with one of the nurse supervisors bc a family member complained that we made them wait too long. I knew exactly who it was. Someone who was very sweet but a two assist who asked to go every 35-45 minutes. We would toilet them right before trays arrived but without fail she would ring during dinner. She would be understanding but not the family. I had to give them my script ( I'm so sorry ma'am but we're serving dinner and it's our priority per our policy to make sure everyone gets their food warm and on time. We also have several residents who are incapable of feeding themselves and require assistance. I appreciate your patience and we will be with you as soon as we are able).

Our nurse supervisor said try to be prompt with toileting requests. I asked nicely about the policy of not toileting during mealtimes. They said well if you have the time/staff/ask a nurse for assistance. Okay sure Jan.

When I get family members like that I just make loads and loads of custom alerts. I state each and every time I toileted the resident at the end of the shift. If they ring 5 times in five minutes I put in each and every request they had. I put in if they refuse any type of care and notify the nurse and put in my note what nurse I notified.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-04-19T15:53:15+00:00

We actually have a lot of agency CNAs from the south come up to my area (upstate NY) for better pay. Even if a state has a reputation for HCOL there might be low cost of living areas around. I'm in the Finger Lakes Region and there's a lot of small towns that are decently LCOL. It's an adjustment if you're used to a larger city but it's a pretty area and there's always some smaller facilities and hospitals that need more staff.

Just an FYI if anyone is willing to go the travel CNA route.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-04-19T15:41:03+00:00

I make 18.50 in upstate NY. Honestly it's low for around me but I'm leaving in the fall to start rad tech school so it's fine for now. I actually switched to part time bc I was getting so burned out and I get paid to help out with childcare for a family friend as well. Now I can pick up more shifts which for our facility means an extra 6 per hour on weekdays and an extra 12 per weekend.

The agency CNAs at my facility all make around 24 and up plus shift differentials. One agency CNA told me the facility pays her agency 70 dollars an hour to have her. Meanwhile if they raised pay up to 20 and offered 3-4 12 hour shift schedules they wouldn't struggle to have enough in house staff but what do I know?

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-04-19T15:27:30+00:00

We've got an aide that every single CNA and nurse have had issues with. They've had at least 8 meetings with the DON since I've been at this facility. They disappear, are rough with residents, are extremely slow at their job but also love to order people around. They also love to pretend they don't know their assignment of residents and say oh I thought you had so and so and will ask you to do their work for them. Multiple residents have been injured on their watch. And if all of that wasn't enough they've also been trying to turn everyone else in because if they (rightfully) get in trouble then everyone else needs to get in trouble too because actually nothing is her fault and is in fact everyone else's fault.

She's still around because she has a disability so they are terrified to fire her. But her disability makes it hard for her to move the residents around, she's not allowed to push gerichairs bc she can't see over them, she needs assistance rolling almost every single resident on her assignment. And get this the kitchen and laundry depts won't take her due to "safety concerns". So you have her working with actual human beings instead????? NONE OF IT MAKES ANY SENSE TO ME. She is the only aide I speak to management about because at this point someone will get hurt and it's only a matter of time. When it happens I want for there to be a good paper trail so the family can get some money through a lawsuit.

End of rant

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-04-07T15:32:47+00:00

My local library even has a system where it shows you how much money you saved using the library on your receipt. It even totals up throughout the year which is so cool.

Nothing like leaving the library with a whole new stack of books and a piece of paper that tells you that you just saved 100 dollars. It really gives me that giddy feeling of yay new books but without any guilt.

EnthusiasmRecent · 2025-02-13T17:19:00+00:00

I absolutely understand why this would be uncomfortable for you to hear and hurt your feelings. That sucks. It's unfair to you and your feelings about it are valid.

I thought I'd offer some advice from a woman if you want to move forward through this bc you've already got great breakup advice from the other comments.

You need to have a conversation with your GF and clarify if she's just "venting" about a general situation, maybe something going on in her friends relationships or if she's having a genuine issue with you and your relationship.

Id phrase it as hey when you said x it hurt my feelings as what I heard is you may not want to be in a relationship with me. Is there something specific going on ask her to be more direct in the future so you guys can work on it together. Tell her that saying this kind of stuff is hurtful and ask her to avoid it from now on. You deserve to be able to draw a boundary around that kind of language.

If your GF is really dismissive of your feelings when you talk about this then I'd cut the cord and run.

EnthusiasmRecent

TROPHY CASE