Seahorse down the drain

 I finally realized yesterday morning that I hadn't fed my new seahorses at their normal feeding time (I was about an hour late) and I scurried to thaw out their frozen mysis shrimp cube.  As I waited for the cube to thaw in a small bowl of their tank water, I looked for all 4 of my new fish.  I only found 3.  Not unusual, really.  Seahorses like to try to hide and camouflage themselves when they sleep.  I started slowly pouring in their food and watching for the 4th seahorse to rise up from the depths of the rocks or something but she never appeared.  I looked down in the rocks from all angles, no fish. I had the idea that maybe she somehow went down the drain but couldn't figure how she could have since the drain opening is right at the top of the water and she would have had to throw herself over the edge by coming slightly out of the water.  Well, it was worth a look.  I opened the cabinet below to see the sump but the light hadn't come on yet.  Darn it, now I have to find a flashlight.  I can't find anything since I had to pack up all our belongings into boxes and move them to the basement for the carpet layers last week. After a half an hour of looking and finding no sign of her, I woke my husband. He did the same things I did.  Look into the rock, around the rock, he even reached in with his extra long rubber glove and moved the rock.  She wasn't underneath it, either.  She had completely disappeared.  He came to the same conclusion I did and reached for a flashlight to look in the sump.  He somehow found one immediately, looking in the same place I looked and found none.  We looked together in the sump and as he was getting up to put the flashlight away, I thought I saw something funny.  I told him to bring the flashlight down again and then I saw her!  She was laying flat and immobile at the back of the drip tray that the drain empties onto. My husband reaches in to take her out and dispose of her, but her tail curls around his finger as he lifts her out! She somehow survived the trip!  He put her immediately back in the tank where she swam to her mate and wrapped herself around him for comfort.  We'll watch her carefully for a while, but there was no visible signs of damage to her.  This morning she was well and ate heartily with the rest. What an ordeal!


  

Renovations and seahorses

  Our apartment complex is going through a rather extensive renovation.  So far we've had our roof completely torn off and redone, windows replaced, our sliding glass door replaced, our carpet torn up and replaced, our front wall cut open, cleaned out, and fixed (apparently there is a design flaw that allowed moisture to come between the outer brick wall and the inner drywall, causing a buildup of mildew...ew!  We've had our bathroom exhaust fans replaced, a few bricks on the outside corner of our kitchen cut out and replaced, and there is more to go!  Our carpets were done on Monday and we had to box up everything we own and take it to a room without carpeting (bathrooms, kitchen, or basement) to get them out of the way for the carpet layers.  Now the carpet is in and looks marvelous, but I have to go through all our boxes and put everything back!  I'm using this as an opportunity to downsize.  It's taking a bit longer, because I'm emptying everything out one item at a time, choosing whether to keep it or not and if not, whether to throw it away or give it away.

Through all this, we decided to order more seahorses.  We loved having them before and have been waiting months to get more.  We had a couple repairs to do on our car first, but now that's done and our carpet is in and we no longer have to worry about moving a 45 gallon tank with temperamental fish in it.  So here they are: Inky, Blinky,  Pinky, and Clyde.  The diamond goby we have in the tank is named Pac-Man.  If you've ever seen a goby eating, you'll understand the name!  We have 2 bonded pairs that we hope will mate soon...I just love seahorse babies!

Pinky

Inky

Blinky

Pinky and Clyde

New mice

Valentine slipper socks, adorable, eh?

When our little mouse, Nermal, died, we told our little prince that we weren't getting any more mice.  We spent the weekend running around, buying him new shoes (he's  size 7 in men's now!), getting more stuff for our freshwater fish tank, picking up yarn for a pair of slipper socks I've been commissioned to make, you know, stuff like that.  While we were at the pet store we looked at the mice (they didn't have rats this weekend for some reason) and we like to look at how they play and what markings they have. We almost had tears when we told our little one we weren't taking any  home.

Introducing "Wildstyle"(formerly "Pear")

Halfway home I got a message from a neighbor asking if we could take in a couple mice!  I almost answered her "no" without even discussing it with my husband because half an hour before we had a heated discussion with the boy about how we absolutely were not taking in any more mice!  Before I did answer her, I mentioned laughingly how I just got a message from her and he started asking me questions about them.  Long story short, we now have 2 more mice!  They are very friendly and playful and love to be handled.  It took us quite a while to get our others to trust us well enough to be picked up, but these have no problems.  Our little prince renamed them from what they come to us as.  Snickers ' new name is "Echo" (from Jurassic World) and Pear's new name is "Wildstyle" (after the Lego Movie heroine).  They were crawling and exploring all over us last night, digging in their new bedding, running laps around their new cage,just being all around happy!  They are still curled up in their cage this morning, cuddled together with a paper towel I threw in for them to play with last night.

introducing "Echo" (formerly "Snickers")

I look forward to getting to know these adorable little cuties.  They are about a year old now (one of them is the mother of the other one) so we should have them for at least several months.  They were housed with males at one time so there's a small possibility that one or both may be pregnant so we'll have to watch for that.  Updates to follow! :-)

life, recently

There has been sickness in this household for at least a week.  The little prince missed a day of school because he was so miserable, then came home from school later in the week with an earache.  All 3 of us have it and my darling husband is on his second round.  Our last little mouse died this week too, the day the little prince came home from school.   We have her cage cleaned out and back in the basement and we moved the rat cage to the spot she occupied to open up our walkway a bit.  I never liked the cage being so close to the door anyway.  The little prince is taking it very well.  She was 2 years and 2 months old.

Little prince charming brought his report card home yesterday.  It wasn't as good as I'd hoped in some areas and better in others.  I also got his standardized test scores.  I won't go into that because I might burst into flames.  Suffice it to say, I despise standardized testing.  The scores do not accurately reflect my boy's understanding of the material, just that he wants to get finished as quickly as possible.  That's enough of that.

This is a Joe bot.  He is remote controlled and "talks" through a walkie talkie.

Yesterday when I picked him up from school he came running to the car (unusual for him; he usually wanders and meanders and drives me crazy with his lazy stroll while the other parents are piling up their cars behind me and blocking me in when they go around).  He throws open the door and yells "I won, I won!" to which I respond "hooray! what are you talking about?!" and he informs me he won a "Joebot." He was entered in a drawing for Joe when he filled out forms for a school fundraiser.  He was extremely excited and it's easy to see why!  An inflatable toy that can carry things across the room for you?!  How cool!  Joe helped us clean up the living room yesterday.

This is what I've been working on.

I've been too much of a baby to do much myself.  For the last couple weeks I've been knitting knee high slipper socks per request.  I bought the pattern off ravelry.com and it's called anelmaiset.  I used the colors I had on hand but I would have chosen differently if I could.  I am hoping they will be a hit with my friends and that I can try again.  I had a friend tell me she would take the pair I made for practice, but I have to tear out the toe and make them a bit longer.  Not a bad life, all in all.

Just for your viewing pleasure.  Indominus Rex reading a book and sipping her morning coffee.

More rambles

What a busy day!  I went shopping this morning, just for a "few things" but ran into my big brother in the store and spent twice as much as I meant to "walking around" with him!  I picked up a few stocking stuffers for my little prince and picked up the stuff I went after as well.  I picked up groceries after I left and it took me 6 trips to bring it all inside...actually not all of it, I left the sodas out in the car! I put a load of laundry in, paid some bills, overheard the office manager of our apartment complex saying that they will be renovating the buildings (hooray!), answered some emails, and now I need to straighten up and clean a bit before starting on my Christmas crochet. I have to line a few purses/totes, finish some others, wrap a few gifts, probably ought to eat something today (!), send out some packages, put the laundry in the dryer, oh my goodness, I'm getting overwhelmed by the thought of all I still have to do and I'm not even done thinking about what I need to do yet!

I guess I'd better get off the computer and get some of this todo list done!

sweater alteration

the sweater

I got a few more items from Aunt J  that  love but need to alter.  This sweater with the beautiful dark red color is one of them.  The problem is the little upside down v shape in the front of the hemline.  when I raise my hand to brush my hair out of my eyes (which I do a lot!) my belly shows. If I was 20 years younger (and 20 pounds lighter) it may not bother me so much.  But as it is...

the lace

I've been wanting to work with lace for a while now.  I'm turning 40 in a couple weeks and I've noticed my tastes have changed.  I'm trying to dress like an adult (my husband's words, not mine).  So I thought this might be a good opportunity to do so.  I couldn't find a wide band of lace at our local WalMart so I had to make some.  Knitting is tedious and time consuming so I decided to crochet it instead. I wish I had thread that matched the color of the sweater but I didn't so I used white.  White goes with everything, right? I found the pattern for this lace on Pinterest, which linked to this page.  I wasn't sure how much to make, but I wanted to possibly go around the sleeves to tie it together so I made more than I thought I needed.  It's a good thing I did!

carefull!

I used the crochet thread that I made the lace with to sew it by hand to the inside hem of the sweater.  I used a small yarn needle.  It doesn't have a sharp point to snag on the threads and it has an eye big enough for the thread to go through easily.  First I turn the sweater inside out, then I slightly stretched the fabric before inserting the needle through 2 little threads at a time then back through the lace. I probably shouldn't have done that because being the hem of a sweater, it won't be stretching at all so the lace didn't need to have room to move.  If I had left it alone I may have had enough left over to go around the sleeves like I had planned.  It turns out that I had exactly enough to go around the bottom!

finished! you can see that "V" now

I wasn't planning on a ruffle, but I do like it as it turns out.  I think a tiny bit of skin still shows, but I'm much less self-conscious about it now.  Yesterday I wore another of Aunt J's sweaters and it was cut a bit high also.  I'm working on another strip of lace (my own design this time) to put around the bottom of it.  Do you alter your clothing?  I'm rather new to this but I'm having loads of fun!

closeup

 

conferences and lace

Last night was parent/teacher conferences for my little prince.  Husband dearest stayed home with him while I went.  I had the best conference ever since he started school!  I was told that he occasionally has trouble focusing (I know) and that there are certain kids he has trouble playing with or relating to (I know) but that every time he was called on to answer a question he answered it correctly and without hesitation (yay!). I was also told he is not shy about speaking out in front of the class (yay!).  We went over his IEP and some of his goals are nearing completion (hooray!). My only real concern is that he doesn't show his teachers that he's learning.  They do a standardized test (don't get me started on that subject!) at the beginning of the year and compare results at the end.  My dear, clever, little prince charming knows that if he answers a question incorrectly on the computer, it gives him an easier question to answer.  He doesn't like math, he doesn't like figuring out answers.  He doesn't try on the computer, even though he can do it.  He'd rather guess or answer wrong on purpose to get an easier question.  He tested at about a Kindergarten level in reading, which is the most ridiculous thing it could say!  His reading isn't fluid or smooth, it's a bit choppy, but he reads very well and understands what he reads, though he has trouble retelling.  The issue here is that even though he understands, he can't retell.  That makes it look like he doesn't understand. His teachers were shocked when I told them he could pull this on them.   It never occurred to anyone that a kid would do this. He freely admits it, so I know it's true, not just my maternal instincts screaming that my child is better than they tell me (though they are!). He's had a very good week in school, according to his behavior report. Unfortunately, this year they are marking his behavior as 0 if he doesn't bring his report to class.  This upsets me, because it says he isn't meeting his goal of 80% when in reality he is.  Enough of my mother bear impression!

I have started working on some lace for the sweater I inherited from Aunt J.  I didn't have any matching thread so went with white. It's a dark red sweater with fake buttons down the front that I'm thinking of snipping off.  I think this lace on the bottom of these towels is pretty, and wide enough of a band to cover my belly when I raise my arms.  I'm short waisted so it's usually not an issue, but these are a bit shorter than I'm comfortable with! I'm a bit old to be wearing a belly shirt! It isn't cute anymore ;-)

I do have some graphs to generate for a few customers that want to make afghans so I should get off this blog and do some real work.  I'm hoping to finish that lace later today so I can sew it on the sweater and make it wearable for this weekend.