Hello, it's been a little while, I've got a whole hodgepodge of things to share. First off, this little guy was just too cute, and he was so cooperative about having his picture taken. He was hanging out chirping in the garden after what was possibly our last big "summer" rainstorm a few weeks ago.
Next up, holy cow, I don't think there is much more of a crafty thrill than making pom poms. My mom is visiting, and she brought her newly purchased pom pom makers, and we've been having a lot of fun. Mostly just working with leftover yarn of all colors and varieties, but I've got some ideas now... and Amy made two for herself to tie on her school backpack. She also really wanted to make a big one for Daddy, so we found some yarn in Coast Guard colors:
Next up, I promised to introduce some new friends, and here they are - meet Belle:
and Bingo:
We had a terrific red betta for over two years who recently died a peaceful fishy death of natural causes. After a proper fishy mourning period I set out with the kids to find someone else to fill the tank. We were planning on another betta, a blue one, to be exact, but something drew us to the tank of 27 cent goldfish, and with the thought that the kids could each get one, we picked out two with interesting markings, bought some food, and brought them home to our already-established 5-gallon tank. Amy chose the name Belle and William chose the name Bingo.
Of course, I can't keep anything simple, and after reading some about goldfish later that night, I started feeling guilty about their relatively small digs. I realize that plenty of people keep goldfish in nothing more than a bowl, but knowing that these guys can grow to 12" and live for a decade or two in a nice pond, I thought that perhaps they deserved a little more room.
And as I pondered all this, I got thinking about a different place for the tank, somewhere where the kids could see it more and free up my kitchen counter a bit, and while I was at it, how to better organize the kids toys and art supplies that are front and center in our living/dining space. Trust me, it was all tied together in my mind. This was the first change:
Bought a smaller shelf for below the "bar" area, reduced and recombined the art supplies, and moved the bigger, 9-cube shelf over to the empty wall in the living room. Don't have a picture of that at the moment, but boy did it make me happy to sort through the toys and reorganize and consolidate and pitch out... ahhhh!
Anyway, after almost talking myself and Don into a 30-gallon tank that would, dimension-wise, fit exactly on the top of this shelf, I decided that perhaps that was just too much for our current circumstances, moving and all that. And so as a compromise William and I picked up a simple 10-gallon glass tank and hood at Petsmart today. Amy and I set it up this afternoon, and voila!
Clutter! Clutter! Right now my decorating scheme is a bit "kindergarten class"... hmmm, need to work on that. Also working on my fish-photography skills. But you get the idea. We are all really pleased with the aesthetics of the whole setup now, and the fish seem happy with the roomy accommodations. And, rest assured, the cats have a close eye on the whole situation:
No comments:
Post a Comment