# General Topics > Member of the Month >  MOTW - Feb 17 - Feb 23 2013 - Lija

## Jen

Congratulations to this weeks Member of the Week - Lija!

Looking forward to learning more about you!!

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## Colleen/Jerrod

Congrats Lija!!! :Big Grin:

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## Lija

thank you guys! I'm honored, and now what? you wanna know all about me? lol prepare to read and look at the pics, I like to brag, but you know about it already, aren't you  :Smile:

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## bill

congrats Lija!! pics!! i thought i missed something last week!!LOL

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## Lija

> congrats Lija!! pics!! i thought i missed something last week!!LOL


 you can always add you know  :Smile:

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## Patsy

> congrats Lija!! pics!! i thought i missed something last week!!LOL


I was wondering what happened to the rest of last week! I thought something happened to you!

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## Lisa

Congrats!

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## Jen

*Monday*, tell us all about you! We know you obviously like amphibians, but we want to know about the rest of your life. Details about you, your life, hobbies, families, past times, favorite colors, poems you have written etc etc....just use this post to brag/boast/bore us how you please.

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## Lija

where to start, where to start.....  :Smile:  

 my name is Natalija, I live in Calgary, have 2 daughters, 15 and 7. Originally from Lithuania ( small country by the Baltic sea) we moved to Canada 9 years ago. my older daughter is  a crested gecko breeder ( with our help of course), but she loves it, knows everything about it, younger wants to have a leopard gecko as her first pet. quite a normal family, right.  :Smile:  my oldest is also national level rhythmic gymnast, currently on a canadian national team.
When i was younger i used to have a Turkish Angora cattery, did a lot of shows and traveling, at one point i had 9 cats + kittens, but when i left for university it was hard to keep it up, thus had to say good buy to that part of my life. Growing up i had a lot of pets, birds mostly because my parents were not appreciative lol of anything scaly, they say that if you deprive children of something they find it hard to stop  getting it when they grown ups, that would probably explain our current zoo, my husband was in exact same situation.
 Growing up I was lucky enough to work with zoologist university professor on number of things, including genetics of budgies and rehabilitating wild birds, but wanted to help as many animals as i could and went for DVM studies where i met my other half. We are together for 17 years now. 

 to be continued..... gotta go, today is family day in Alberta

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## Heather

Congrats Lija!

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## Jen

*Tuesday*, tell us about your amphibians. How you came to keep them, mistakes/learning curves, species kept, breedings, how you found Frog Forum etc....we heard enough about you on Monday, let us hear about them frogs!

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## bill

Lija! It's so good to get to know more about you! How was family day?

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## Patsy

Congrats! I love that your daughters are into reptiles, a lot of girls would be creeped out.

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## Jen

*Wednesday*, show and tell. Wow us with your pictures/videos/sound clips.

Lija, just do Tues and Weds together  :Smile:

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## Lija

so sorry guys, life got in a way big time, but tomorrow will get on top of it, will spill all the beans about everything, it is my day off finally  :Smile:  
 you will get sick of me lol and my pictures lol

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## Lija

> Congrats! I love that your daughters are into reptiles, a lot of girls would be creeped out.


 lol they are not typical lol that is for sure, but i think lots of girls are this way because of stereotype, it is like almost expected for them to be this way. it is actually sad, when we have kids to come over and stay without parents they are very interested in things scaly, but if parent is present it is very different. From time to time I'm bringing one or 2 snakes or geckos to school for "show and tell", i think it is important to educate kids and give them opportunity to not be scared, to know how to respect reptiles and that they are not slimy as most of the people think. You won't believe how interested they are and how many whys I'm getting at schools, sometimes kids are coming to chat about something reptile related after school too. And we are talking about elementary school here.

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## Lija

will continue what I should have done this week  :Smile: 

  I believe in science,that everything can be proven, i also believe in balance and harmony around us, for every Yin there is a Yan, for every negative there is positive, for every stupid there is a smart, everything around us will keep a balance if only we let it be.

 favorite color - turquoise
 favorite season - summer
 hobbies: well lol a lot  :Smile:  and actually that is one of the reasons i haven't got my vet license yet, my hobbies got in a way  :Smile:  and before i go through the hell called getting north American license for internationally educated veterinarians i better know for sure that is what i want to do.
 so.... i like art, i like to create, i like to do things myself, i like to learn and  i like a challenge and i can't sit still i need to so something all the time, either it is painting or foil art, cross stitching, knitting or sculpting. Right now after seeing Bills tanks I'm all in into learning how to do it  :Smile:  will show my creation soon  :Smile: 
 When my older daughter just started rhythmic she needed a competitive suits, there was not much of a choice, it was super expensive to get anything nice and chances are exact same costume will have tons of other girls, so i got a sewing machine and that is how it started.
 here is an examples on why sometimes i'm away from FF for longer periods of time, when i start making usually I'm in until I'd done, i find it difficult to stop when you are in a creative "zone", i love it! it has everything, designing, painting, sewing, you are making something out of nothing, the first pic ( colorful one) made out of plain white fabric, it is all paint and swarovski  :Smile:

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## Lija

so now my non human family  :Smile: 
 first one would be a ball python, she has a interesting story. Actually majority of our animals came this way more or less. 
 so one day my husband called me from work saying firefighters brought her to his clinic, she is very cute and he'd like to adopt her. She was found in somebody's house, all curled up in a bathroom, the lady went to use the facility, saw her and freaked up. firefighters said that they found the lady standing on the top of toilet and screaming lol all that for tiny ( then ) ball python. pic taken soon after adoption, can't believe she was that tiny, she is a VERY big girl now.


so after required wait time with spca we adopted her. And that is how our reptile journey started. we kept some before, but never so many as we do now.

 here is our first cat Nora, she is Abyssinian blue and the only one so far who we got knowing ahead of time what we want. She passionately hates everybody but me and would love to live on my bed or at least anywhere with me in sight, in her mind I'm her mommy probably. She is one of the smartest cats I've ever came across.

 and the other 2 cats -  Nika and Siamese cross Maya, both rescues. Maya is comptete opposite of Nora, she is the stupidest cat on earth probably, honestly, if cats IQ could be measured Mayas would probably be at 10 at max. Nika is a happy medium. in pic - Maya when she was a kitten, she climbed up the tree in hopes of catching our budges, whose cage is hanging on a wall.



 to be continued .......

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## Patsy

> lol they are not typical lol that is for sure, but i think lots of girls are this way because of stereotype, it is like almost expected for them to be this way. it is actually sad, when we have kids to come over and stay without parents they are very interested in things scaly, but if parent is present it is very different. From time to time I'm bringing one or 2 snakes or geckos to school for "show and tell", i think it is important to educate kids and give them opportunity to not be scared, to know how to respect reptiles and that they are not slimy as most of the people think. You won't believe how interested they are and how many whys I'm getting at schools, sometimes kids are coming to chat about something reptile related after school too. And we are talking about elementary school here.



I'm learning that when people learn more about frogs and reptiles the less scared they are, me included.  One of the doctors I work with is always asking me about them and wanting to see pictures. One of my coworkers came over to see them and she was amazed at the whole set up. Of course when the coworker came over my frog PERFORMED! Jumped on the glass, gave her a smile and even went into a shed! People just need to be educated.

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## Patsy

Love the pictures of your cats, as far as Maya being the most stupid cat I think it must be the breed, we have a Siamese mix that is pretty stupid too!

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## Lija

it way be true, although real Siamese cats are pretty smart, the skinny ones that look like rats lol

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## Heather

It's very nice to learn more about you. I love the pictures. 

We love cats too. We have 2 adopted cats, both black with green-yellow eyes. Typical short hair.

The performance outfits are beautiful! You are quite talented! I've found that a good number of us here either love art and/or have a creative talent of some sort  :Smile: .

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## Colleen/Jerrod

Love the part about the cat trying to capture your Budgetts!!!

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