New tank!

It's all set up except the filter (which I'm getting for Christmas), and it looks very nice. It's even on a stand that Mark made for me. ^_^ That being said, never buy wood at Lowes unless you know what you want already... because I didn't have a clue what I was doing, and the dude talked me into MUCH heavier wood than I needed. The folks at Home Depot are much more helpful. Anyway, here's a picture:

I'm going to put shrimp and snails in it. I just got the Java moss today, the stuff is harder to tie in there than I thought it would be, I need to rearrange it so that one can see the nice canyon between the two big back rocks that I made. Still, it almost looks like I planned how it would look, rather than just throwing plants and rocks in there.

Anyway, on to the news that people care about, I'm sure. Thanksgiving went well... we went to Mark's sister's place and had vegan thanksgiving, which was wonderful and delicious and we had lots of fun, but it gave Elspeth terrible gas. Then on Friday I decided I wanted turkey dang it so we had thanksgiving again. I know, I'm crazy. Then on Saturday I got really sick! It couldn't have been any of the food, because Elspeth and Mark ate all the same things and are completely healthy, so I must have picked up a bug somewhere.

Speaking of bugs, Elspeth is all over her rash! Just pink spots! What rash you say? Well let me tell you... we thought it was the chicken pox, but it was only in her mouth and on her one arm, so off we went to the urgent care clinic. The nurse there was certain it was chicken pox, so why don't you just take her home so she doesn't infect anybody. I still wanted to see the doctor, even though she made me feel silly for it. Good thing I did! Three doctors later, we were fairly certain it wasn't chicken pox (but it might be), and had looked at the blister goo under a microscope, thus determining that it wasn't fungal. Everybody had a different theory. And you know what it was? Cold sores. Yup, cold sores, herpes virus, just all over her poor little arm, and by the time the test results got back, on one of her legs too. Like I said, it's completely better now though, just where the rash was the worst, the skin is kind of pinkish, and slightly raised. Poor boo. She's just glad not to have to wear mittens all the time though, I'm sure, and THANK HEAVEN IT WASN'T THE CHICKEN POX!

Another fish!

So, the glolite tetras have been chasing each other around violently and biting each other's fins. Not good behaviour. I talked to Jay at the LFS down the street, he says that he's never seen tetras do that before... but agreed that adding another one wouldn't hurt, and could help. So we have four tetras now, the new one of which is notably bigger than its companions. We're calling it Dartanian, and it's actually doing a pretty good job keeping the original three in line... while they're quite as active as before, they aren't quite as VIOLENT. I win.

Now if only I could get that shrimp tank... if nothing else, Christmas is coming up... >^.~<

My poor shrimp!

At least one of them is dead (I found a corpse when I cleaned the filter), and I can't find the other two anywhere. I want an all shrimp tank! They were stressed out because the fish picked on them, and I'm sure that that's what did them in. Unless the fish killed them outright. Poor little shrimpies!

In news that people other than me care about, Elspeth had her birthday on Monday, and we had birthday pie. She was very cute, and smooshed it all over the place. Going further back, her party was on Saturday. It was supposed to start at three, but Elspeth fell asleep at freaking TWO FIFTY FIVE, but anyway nobody but my family and the Eastwoods got there on time... so the party REALLY started at about four when Elspeth woke up and the cousins finally got there. It was fun though, I made pinapple upside down cake, but we forgot to get out the ice cream, so now we have LOTS of ice cream.

Elspeth also grew another tooth... on the bottom! So she has three bottom teeth now, and no top teeth. All kinds of snaggle-toothed. But very cute. She's also toddling around really well now, especially when she's around all other kids who are walkers... but if there are any crawlers around, she crawls! She likes to be big, but she likes to be fast too, I guess.