Aquarium Lovin'

Since I just posted some of these pictures to another site, I thought I'd go ahead and add a blog about our enjoyment of our fish hobby. I NEVER thought I'd want to keep fish, or like it at all, but with children come lots of new adventures!

I'm just a novice at this, but it has been interesting all the same. We got this underway 7 months ago and I am hooked on this now! I hope to move from goldfish to tropicals when our current fish die or are given away (the children are currently attached to them.) We just have a 5-gal. and a 10-gal. aquarium, but it has been really fun, and not too hard getting started or too expensive, though you do have to factor in over $100 for the necessary start-up supplies.

My children won 5 goldfish (the ultra cheap feeder fish) at a neighborhood pool party last year, and we already had the empty 5-gal from the year before when we made some mistakes purchasing tropical fish from the grocery store (!) with no idea what we were doing and they died quickly. After the fish were in the 5-gal, one died right away (Goldie was her name and very much beloved by DD7), so we were down to four. That week I bought the 10-gal tank for DD9's room since we needed more room for the fish and I knew she'd take good care of it. Two fish stayed in the 5 gallon (Leopard and Squeak) and two were moved to the 10 -gal (Behemoth and Percy). What was cool was they were marked with lots of black when we got them and over the first few weeks they got golder, which I learned was a sign of health (black smudge disease is what they had from being in a crowded store tank.)

With guidance from Jack's Aquarium store, we added 1 cory catfish and 1 dwarf plecostomus (bottom- and algae-eaters) to the 5 gal. and we added 2 cories and 1 dwarf pleco to the 10-gal. We are soon going to move the 2 goldfish from the 5 gal to the 10 gal and then make the 5 gallon suitable for tropicals, yay! We'll just put something like 3 guppies in there because they stay small, are colorful, and I've heard are fun to watch. We'll get all one sex, though, unless advised differently. Eventually we'd love to have tropical fish in both tanks, and even maybe get a large tank, like 35-55 gallons. DD9 can't wait to have pink (white) kissing gouramis. :)

Here's some pics, even though they can't compare to tropicals for beauty. I really like seeing them in the kitchen, though I can see how it might turn some people off. ;)

5-gal in kitchen (this is August, 1 month into it; fish are bigger now)


you can barely see the pleco bottom center (December, fish are yet bigger now)


10 gal in DD's room (October):


the are eating freeze-dried shrimp. We just bought some big rocks and want to get more plants to add soon:


It is truly fun for the whole family![:D]

Relational

I can't sleep tonight, and as I lay there wondering if getting up would help or not, I thought about what I might do if out of bed.... I thought about what was keeping me awake..... I realized that I couldn't get thoughts of many, many people and recent conversations or hoped-for future conversations out of my head. So that made me think of a Blog I've been meaning to revisit, and my own blog, and of letters I want to write, etc.

I am amazed once again to realize how relational a person I am. This has been a revelation over the last year or two. I've always been called shy, and I am, but like a lot of shy people, I care about people more than I'm comfortable showing. I don't consider myself very good at making new friends, but like the girl scout song, I do try to "keep the old..." :) I literally live for the relationships in my life, and what I'm also realizing, that's what I usually counsel others about. Any time I'm compelled to go out of my way to counsel or comfort someone it usually has to do with their need for relational healing, or guidance, or that sort of thing. I urged one woman who wanted so badly to be a mom but kept having miscarriages to rethink her situation at a job that was creating lots of stress. I told her she sounded like a very nurturing person and maybe she just needed to find something that would let her use that part of her nature, and remove herself from the source of the stress. I was thinking the stress might be adding to her reproduction woes, as I know it can. A few months later she quit her job, started a jewelry design business from home, and after about eight months of trying, conceived and now is almost 30 weeks pregnant! I can't be more thrilled for her until her baby actually arrives. Another mom and I are now talking via internet about Post-partum depression which I had in some measure after my first was born. I would spend hours a day talking with people like that if I could.

And then there's my children. I could never have guessed how much my children would mean to me. How much I could enjoy children! It has turned my life upside down. I am such a different person for knowing them. They rule me, heheheh, but I try not to let them know it!

My oldest daughters were so cute today. They had a 'snow day' and so I suggested they do some crafts as they often feel they don't have enough time for them. They took to that idea and spent HOURS at the kitchen table making homemade Valentine's Day cards for each of the family members. They decorated white lunch bags for each of us and put them on the mantle. The bags really add a festive touch! I am a poor decorator, but my DD9 is pretty smart that way; I look forward to her help more and more in the future LOL!

[My friend commented I should add a pic of the results, so here is one!]




At my daughters' urging, I sat down for a while and started making DH a card. This is what I think it's going to say when I'm all done:

PAPA BEER, Will U (picture of three bees--because we have a stamp like that and thought my daughters would like it :) ) My

open up card:

(picture of a cupcake)

[just so it's clear, all told it says, "Papa Beer, will you be my...Cupcake?" He likes beer, I like cupcakes, I had to come up with something quick, I don't get out much, yada yada]

OK, that was mushy and private, not to mention corny ;-) .... I'm really trying to stretch out of my shy existence here! One of my many nicknames for DH is Papa Bear, so I was about to stamp the "A" in "BEAR" and I was still holding the "E" stamp in my hand, about to wash it off, when I thought, if I stamp "E" again it would say "BEER" and that would be an "oops" but wait a minute, I like that better! DH does love a good beer.

I have had a strange illness for about a week, but the symptoms seemed disconnected and maybe they are. My DD7 was diagnosed around 1/31 with "fifth's disease" and thankfully that's not as bad as it sounds--just a nuisance virus that clears up after a few days--unless you're a pregnant woman. DD7 got over it and I got it. And in case I haven't written this here already, I am a pregnant woman. Yeah. This virus also known as human parvovirus B19 and it can, in a low % of pregnancies, harm the fetus, even fatally.... I have come to terms with that, and really I'm not too worried, I trust in whatever God's will is, but now I'm just trying to figure out these wacky symptoms. Five days after the rash appeared (it was gone in 12 hours thankfully cuz it itched like no one's business) I got really tired and achy in my joints. I figured I was coming down with some lovely new virus. I never got a fever, though. Instead I got weird circulation problems. My joints are a little less sore, but the stranger thing is my legs hurt the minute I stand on them. They feel like I've just gotten over the pins-and-needles stage of getting my circulation back. And my arms get tingly after holding my one-year-old for a short time. And my hands fell asleep in my sleep the other day.... I thought this all might be related to the pregnancy, so I called my midwives' office today but the nurse thought it could be relatied to the fifth's disease...she said achiness can last a while with it, which I hadn't heard or read before that. I still think the circulation problem though is troubling. I see the OB at the office this week and I'm sure he'll have some interesting things to say to me regarding this "disease." I am a little nervous about whether we'll hear the baby's heartbeat this time. I did think I felt it kick a few days ago, though, so that was encouraging. I love those first little flutters!

Despite that unusual drama in my otherwise calm life, I am on a Positive Thinking trip these days--no I'm not a Norman Vincent Peale follower--I'm just realizing how important PT really is in anyone's life, and how hard it is for this naturally-melancholy person to sustain it. I believe in living in truth, but I also know we shape our lives by our thinking to a good deal. Like the scripture says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is..." or something like that anyway (I'm too tired to look it up)! ;-) I'm using this Lenten season to focus on the goodness of God, His power, His everlasting love, His beautiful creation, etc. I just really couldn't make myself focus on the usual lenten fare of repentance for sins and sorrow, as good as that all is. I've been down long enough, time for the sunshine!

So I guess it's time for this chatty, tired mama to get herself back to bed.... Before I go I'm going to try to upload a picture again.

Thinking of spring....



This picture was captured last year, just before a late frost nipped these first, tender buds, and they never came back. We planted this tree only the spring before so we have enjoyed its bloom just that once so far... I really hope we see it this year!