Oh hey! Long time no blog, here’s to my first of hopefully many attempts to revive the blog!
1) First and absolutely foremost: I announced on social media a few weeks ago but failed to bless the old blog with the fact sweet babe #7 is on the way! We are, as always, utterly thrilled and cannot wait to meet this little one in July.
First family photo of all 9 of us. Joe is thrilled, really.
2) Speaking of social media, I’ve gone ahead and jumped on the bandwagon of deleting it permanently. I didn’t even realize it was a bandwagon honestly, I’ve just been increasingly weirded out by how much I’m clearly being targeted with advertising and also thrown off by the fact that I just can’t physically NOT get on social media, it is legit addictive. So I pulled off the bandaid BUT when I did I thought I had pulled all my recent messages as well but learned after the deletion that several sweet friends had messaged me with their info to stay in touch that did not get transferred to my phone. If you are one such sweet friend and are reading please let me know so I can write you an email personally.
3) We had a lovely Christmas here at home, followed by some travel to see family in Ohio. We hadn’t seen our families since June so it was really a long time coming. The boys received their very favorite Christmas gift from my mother-in-law- behold the 2 cutest little Steelers football players alive:
They typically fight violently whenever they *actually* play pretend football together but it is adorable while it lasts.
4) Another dynamite gift given by the parental constituents was an aquarium for the boys which we filled with 2 aquatic frogs, 3 tetra fish, 1 small catfish and 2 snails. As it stands 1 frog is still alive of all the aquatic animals. Like I said, a dynamite gift given by a dynamite pet keeper. Any and all aquarium advise is welcome.
5) We have a huge home renovation project in the works in the form of finishing our attic and turning it into the girls room. I will absolutely be updating the blog with before and afters but here is a little teaser of the space after it was all framed:
It was a totally unfinished attic. Mike cut out the 200 year old beams to raise the ceiling so it won’t feel boxy and did all the electrical work my dad came and put in a bathroom and framed everything. We insulate this weekend and drywall next - it really getting real. I’m just a tad excited.
6) Now that I’m feeling a little less like death I’m actually not totally miserable whilst cooking dinner, but I am, however, at a total loss for new (EASY) recipes. Send them my way, please!
7) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but Fred is perhaps the most awesome human being on the planet.
Case in point. Happy weekend!
Same here—off social media, back to blogging! Glad to see you here. Maybe you’ll start a trend and bring others back, too! :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on #7!
Woohoo! I hope this wave of people deleting social media brings back all the good ol days of blogging. None of this newfangled influencer stuff. ;)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on #7!
Recipes: making this one today and everyone loves it!
https://www.sixsistersstuff.com/recipe/cornbread-sloppy-joe-casserole-recipe/
Aquarium advice:
ReplyDelete- Fishtanks need filters, unless you're going to change the water every single day, which has its own problems. If you get a bigger filter than your tank really "needs", keeping everything going will be easier.
- Fishtanks need a source of oxygen in the water. That's live plants, a filter that agitates the surface a whole lot, and/or an air stone that pumps air to the bottom of the tank and releases it.
- Tetras are a great choice, but they like warm water. You'll need a heater. I also highly recommend guppies - they're super cheap, and one male and four or so females will have you set with guppies for life. This has the added bonus of your kids being able to see the little baby fish grow up. If you don't want the parents to eat most or all of them, though, you'll need some cover in the tank - real or fake plants with lots of small 'leaves' work great so that the babies can fit and the adults can't get to them. Don't want more babies? Just remove the cover and the other fish will take care of it for you.
- Fish do not like new, clean tanks. They need a certain amount of bacterial buildup in the substrate and especially the filter media to help deal with waste. It's called 'cycling' your tank - you need to get the nitrogen cycle kickstarted. The best way to do this is to set up your whole tank, especially your filter, and then feed your fishtank for a couple of weeks before you put fish it it. It helps, too, to buy a sort of starter culture. They're sold in bottles anywhere that has aquarium supplies and they're not nearly as gross as they sound. It's just a liquid you measure out and pour in the water, really. It doesn't even have much of an odor. After the tank is filtered, DON'T - EVER - change out all of your filter media (pads, gravel, etc.) at once. You'll kill the bacterial culture you spent so much time building up. Honestly, I'd just set the filter up and leave it, unless it gets actually clogged. It's the bacteria that cleans your tank, not the sponge. If it does get clogged, it's better to rinse it out (one at a time with a couple weeks in between) in dechlorinated water and replace it than to buy new.
- Don't overfeed. Your fish are better off a little hungry, in clean water, than overfed and in dirty. Just the overfeeding is unhealthy for them. When in doubt, feed less. Cold-blooded animals need a lot less food than you might think.
- It's a good idea to do water changes every week or two. Just remove like 20% of the water in your tank and replace it with dechlorinated water. That's to say, not tap. Don't ever put tap water in your tank without first adding SeaChem prime or a similar product, or just leaving the water in an open bucket overnight so the chlorine evaporates off. This one would be my guess for why your fish died as fast as they did. That said, I'm a lazy fishkeeper and don't do any water changes at all. That's why I recommend a bigger-than-necessary filter.
- DON'T worry if you kill some fish, at the beginning. It'll take a little while for your tank to get set up properly, and there's a lot of intangibles. Everybody occasionally has fish die, but they're not much more sophisticated than a bug. Don't think 'oh my gosh, I'm a horrible person! I killed my beloved pet!', but rather 'Oops! Insects are harder to keep alive than I thought!'
- Good luck! Have fun! I know this sounds like a lot, but like I said, mistakes are okay! Start with just setting up your tank. Filter, O2, heat, two weeks of cycling. Once you've done those things, the rest isn't complicated, and frankly the stakes aren't that high. Fish aren't expensive. :0)
Ooooooooh! I love a good before and after. Can't wait to see how this attic/bedroom turns out!
ReplyDeleteGlad you're back! We also deleted all accounts and I love blogs, even though I don't actuallyhave one myself! Also we are also finishing our attic and it's so hard to live in a construction zone!
ReplyDeleteCan't Wait to see the finished attic space.
ReplyDeleteGlad you’re blogging again! I love following along. 🙂
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