2007-08-18, 08:59 AM — my plants
Today is a relaxing day. After a week of ... well, I want to say hell, except that it wasn't really; it was mostly fun, but it was so so so busy.
My birthday being this past week has conspired with a week that somehow has made me feel a lot older and more tired. Everything seems long and complicated. The interesting thing here is that I'm not actually feeling depressed at this realization. I'm rolling with it. And I wonder if that is part of being older, too.
***
I finished setting up the downstairs tank and redoing the upstairs tank. The two plecos seem to be getting along now, although Rocky (the newer one) got a bit beat up in the transition. Little John rules the roost, which I wouldn't have expected from him, being such a gentle and docile creature with the smaller fish he's always lived with. However, Rocky hasn't had any injuries since the initial day, so I figure that they've come to an agreement.
The upstairs tank makes me grin every time I look at it, which is often, since it's sitting right beside me here. I added enriched substrate for the plants, got the light I wanted, and planted many dollars worth of plants. It looks awesome. I've added two pearl gouramis to the setup. They're tiny right now, but they'll grow. Considering the way they've been eating I suspect they'll grow a fair bit. They're really lovely fish and quite active and entertaining. I have to add some oto cats to the setup to clear out some of the algae that's starting to grow, and I may still add an apple snail, but that will be it for tank inhabitants, I've decided. I want the plants to grow.
And now, I think I'll go water my outdoor plants, which need it, even though it's supposed to rain tomorrow. I've harvested tomatoes big and small, and hot peppers, and green beans, and shallots and onions so far this year. There are sweet peppers galore on their way, so I'm hoping the weather holds warm for another couple of weeks to give the peppers time to ripen. I love having a garden. I've also ordered the fall bulbs and perennials to plant, so that will be good too. They come in September.
2007-08-07, 08:38 AM — week off plans
Yay, week off! Sort of. It's packed with things, but it's not camp, so that's nice. I enjoy camp but I can tell you I'm not missing it right now.
We went up to grandma's and then to the cottage this past weekend, and that was lovely. I really enjoyed myself. Good company and really beautiful weather. I had been missing Georgian Bay. There's no blue out there like it.
I did manage to give myself the stupidest, most painful sunburn ever. I don't think my shoulders will go back to normal. I figure I need to drink my coffee and go for a hike. Oh the humanity.
Today is an exciting day. I'm overhauling the fish tank! I've been wanting to do it since we moved but I've finally set aside the money and I'm going to be moving the big fish downstairs, putting some plant-friendly substrate in the small tank, and planting. This will require a new light fixture for the small tank but that's okay. That was the expensive bit, but hopefully I'll find the one I need... otherwise the overhaul may have to wait a bit. I'm excited, though. I'll keep everyone posted. Heh.
2007-07-22, 07:52 PM — Minerva McGonagall is my hero
Warning: Apparently this contains quasi-spoilers...
Update on the Potterthon: I finished at about... hmm, 10 this morning, I guess? Or 9:30. I figure it works out to about 6 hours plus a bit of solid reading. And I did honestly make an effort to read every word, despite what some may say. Had I been reading it with my normal speed, I probably would have finished it in 4 or 5 hours.
It's really quite good, I think, standing back a little now. Intense, dark, and full of all the things I love about the series. It was not exactly easy to read. Not because of the language, which is mostly quite simple, but because some of the content is ... painful to read. There is a body count and some of it is hard to stomach.
I did cry, and I woke fishy up at about 8 this morning (after being up until 2 and sleeping very fitfully afterwards) with my sniffling. Of course, the part I was crying at wasn't someone's death (although I'll admit there was some of that too) but a particular part where I was just so amazed and frightened and proud at how brave some of my favourite characters are. And I was afraid they were all going to die, and I didn't want that to happen. That just goes to show the kind of emotional hold these characters have had on me over the years. I know I'm a sap, but I was pretty amazed. I've only ever wept like that over dying favourite characters. Also, I was pretty tired.
It ended pretty much perfectly. Almost a little too perfectly, with most loose ends wrapped up neatly, and there were some surprises but they were surprises that made a lot of sense. Rowling's pulled off a tremendous feat, keeping track of all of the threads through seven entire books, and managing to tie them all off in a very natural way. All the guns on the mantlepiece went off by the end of the play.
And I'm sorry it's over, but I'm not the kind of person who never re-reads, as we all know. Frankly, I'm mostly relieved. She pulled it off.