Pink Fox: its Raining...IN MY HOUSE! :/

[pinkfox]

i dont know if its just a case of this week actually catching up to me or what, but i feel so off tonight.
cant relax, though im sure thats just a case of giving it a few days...
but still i just feel...off.

im sure itll just take a few days now to settle...

no plans for this week beyond baby sitting as mums back to work this week ontop of everything and im not going to relax untill the surgeon gives him the all clear mid next week...

oh well, going to bed soon.
mabe a good nights sleep will help.

 

[pinkfox]

what have i gotten myselt into now...lol
some aquaintences are getting married this weekend...
i dont know them well so was suprised when i got an invite...

but thankfull for the thought, and knowing a few people that are going, i said why not and rsvp'd

turns out its "formal" attire...
now after going through the interwebs ive come to the concludion that its fancy, but not ball gown fancy...
thankfully my sister was in concert choir in highschool and they had to buy this long black dress (all the girls wore the same) so i tried it on...and its TOO big. but its simple design, shell never wear it again so im going to take it in for the wedding.
but its soooo plain and not me.
so ive also got to figure out how to make it a little more...special.

im thinking once i take it in on the sides to mak eit fit better itll look good as is but i want to do something special with it since i dont go anywhere fancy ever...
so i was thinking some pink satin to make some kind of sash with a pretty sparkly on it or something. some pretty matching pink kitten heals (if i can find a pair, if not i have a black pair) and then a pink flower in my hair. some sparkly jewelry in crystal or crystal and pink (nothing expensive obviously but walmart has a line of realy glitzy hypoalergenic costume jewelry that might work...

but i want something for over my shoulders, im not entirely secure with my arms which are rather bat-wing ish since loosing all the weight...
should i look for a nice matching pink shawl do you think?

i only found out it was formal today, and the wedding is saturday LOL.

oh boy oh boy lol.

in other news. dad seems to be doing ok...getting sick of the shake stage, but hopefully thats only another week before he can start on fine chopped/mushy foods...
whent to the gym today and he did some time on the treadmil so im kinda on high alert right now as his issue started the morning after we whent for a walk... but yeah...he says he feels fine so im keeping hope.

 

[pinkfox]

well its amazing what a few hours can do...
i took the dress in so it now fits much better im proud of myself, never tailored anything before.
then it was still missing something...so i took a sparkly brooch that ive used for everything from an actual brooch to a hiar acessory to a shirt pin, and i stuck it dead center in the chest rouching it a little (there was a bit of a gape) and tada, it makes a huge difference.

i also have a pair of black kitten heals i bought for a wedding i sang at the spring before last there very simple but have this tiny little flat band, im gonna get some matching crystals from walmarts craft center and sew a couple of sparklies onto that little flat band.

there open toed heels but the dress is almost floor length so im not yet sure if ill wear pantyhoes or if ill just get my feet pampered a little and go for a french pedicure?
im going to have my sister do my nails for me in a simple french manicure, so might just match up the toes and go nekkid legged under the dress.

i also already have a little black clutch bag so thats perfect

now i just need to figure out jewelry, hair and makeup and a nice little shoulder coverup...id love a beaded lace shawl but not sure where could get one...hmmm...

i love being dressy up grly once in a while, but man its hard work! lol

 

[pinkfox]

the sun is shining, dads feeling much better (im still warey but yeah)
gonna go out in a little while, dad needs to pay his car taxes and such and off to wallymart so he can pick up a pedometer too. (and i need to pick up my jewelry for saturday. if i can pull this whole thing together for less than $25 ill be mucho happy, thus far ive spent $7 on pantyhoes, and the stuff to do my nails the jewels to do the shoes are $3 ill probbaly need 2 packs. and I can get the necklace and earing set for $11.
ill probably end up having to make a shawl so ill also have to go shell out about $5 on cotton crochet thread (i want something light and lacey) so itll probably be closer to $30 for everything but not bad considering its a ful formal outfit lol.

but yeah...
so far so good.

 

[justusnak]

Sounds like you will be able to pull this wedding thing off in style!! Way to go! Glad to hear your dad is up and going......always nice to see a parent on the mend.

 

[pinkfox]

ugh. i had hot cocoa...and usually its fine, but i buy the no sugar added stuff...
mum made mine tonight, and while its the thought that counts, its not the no sugar added stuff...ewwww....
i didnt realize untill after i finnished it but now as a reward im a little wishy washy, my tummies having a mild hissy fit at me and im having hot flashes...
Yay sugar dumping...it certainly could be worse, but i suddenly feel like im in a sauna lol.

had a good day today though, 6 miles on the bike at the gym and the rest of the day was spent sewing tiny little seed beads onto the 1/2 yard of blac lace i picked up yesterday to make a shawl with. i was going to buy pre-beaded lace, but at $25 a yard....HA...so instead i picked up a simple $9.99 a yard black cotton lace with a rose pattern (cheapest they had), which combined witht he coupon i had came to $3 for 1/2 a yard, and $2 bag of "crystal" seed beads.
sewed little clusters of beads in the center of each rose, then made little tassels for the ends. took all day but it looks quite nice...
and it goes perfectly with the dress and all the accents.
the dress is black with a crystal brooch at the center of the chest, the necklace earing and braclets i picked up are all super sparkly crystal (yay walmarts hypoalergenic costume jewelry lol).
simple black shoes got spiced up with some crystals, i think im all set.
i picked up a nice hair dohicky, so think im going to rag roll my hair the night before (i have natural curls) then tae the back up and let a few curls and my bangs hang free.

i havent been to a formal event since prom and its quite fun to play a different genre of dress up once in a while (im usually a pirate not a fancy girly girl lol) so im quite excited. hopefully ll be able to get some pictures of me...especially since the last formal event i whent to i was in a size 24, this one...im a size 12!
i actually feel pretty in this get up and thats wihtout makeup and prettyfied hair.

not much else going on.
still waiting on some documentation to hopefully finalize this loan and move forward with the house...

and dads going much better, hes alot more positive, been comming to the gym with me and my brother this week, seeing the weight drop off...the not puking blood part helps too. he sees the surgeon and the dietician on tuesday comming to see if he can advance to the next stage (blended/mushies) which hes excited about...fingers crossed. theyll also give him the all clear to start swimming again if his incisions look good (which i think they look amazing, hes not even going to have a visable scar....) which hes super excited about.

tomorrow is thurday, that means ive realy got no plans lined up.
will probably groom the dogs...
ruby could certainly use a good trim...i also think shes comming into heat soon...jaspers paying her much more attention and shes constantly asking to go outside...this means she and rosie (my mums chihuhaua) cannot be together at all...rosie and ruby dont get along on a good day but when the hormones are racing they just want to eat each others faces.

 

[pinkfox]

so today i got a little domestic.
harvested about 5lbs of tomatoes off our plants over the past couple of days...and there was no way we were going to use them all right away...
dad wanted about 1lb of them so he can attempt sun drying...

and i took care of the rest, skinned, de-seeded and bagged 3 1/2 lbs (after skins and seeds were removed) and into the freezer. im thinking itll make a lovely fresh spaghetti sause for them during the winter.

i dont have a canner and 3 1/2 lbs of tomatoes is not going to make more than 1 jar of sauce otherwise i would have made it into sauce, but at least now theyll have home grown tomatoes in the midst of winter that dad can doctor up into a lovely sauce or even use in a nice curry recipie.

it was fun, messy...but fun, kept all the seeds i could will try and dry those and clean em off, gotta look up how to do that now...
and i realized if im going to be maing all my own tomatoe based sauces im going to need to gor alot of tomatoes LOL.
weve probably had about 8 lbs of tomatoes off 10 plants so far and while some are still setting flowers 9mostly the cherry types) the big nom nom tomatoes are looking like their finnishing up...i will admit i didnt exactly keep ontop of cutting back the suckers this year, mostly because its not my garden and dad wanted to do as much as he could so i told him how and well...things got a little haphazard lol.

he promises me next year he'll make some better method of keeping the maters upright and keep onto of removing any suckers to get better production out of them.

some of the spring cauliflower have started to head up and weve got a baby watermellon growing, some yellow squash apearing and 1 BIG zucinni which m thinking is going to get turned into a couple low carb zuccini breads...suggestions folks?! lol.

our peppers didnt do much, got 1 bananna pepper and 1 green bell forming but thus far thats it...nothing on the eggplant either but ive never geown eithe rbefore so not sure if im just being impatient. i planted a bunch of bell peppers because we eat them..alot...and they just havent done anything, there only about 8" tall and we planted them in the spring. it makes me sad because one was a purple one and i realy wanted to get a nice pepper off that one

 

[pinkfox]

wtf is it with people who call themselves your frineds?

friends in generall are supposed to listen to you, trust you and generaly treat you with respect right!?
aparently mine missed the memmo.

see ive been keeping freshwater fish (cold and tropicals) since i was a little bit of a thing, my dad had a tank when i was a baby and as soon as i could i was helping feed and clean and by the time i was 5 i was keeping my own tank 100% by myself...
in the years ive been keeping fish ive had thousands of gallons, and ive seen almost any fishy illness known to home aquariums...from ich to worms and beyond.
currenlty im carng for over 150 fish between my own tank and my parents pond.

my friends know this...
im an animal nut...if theres 1 thing i know its animals...infact its pretty much all i know.

ontop of all this they also know that i also spent 3 years working in petco and petsmart (at the same time lol) and about 75% of my working time in the fish department...
my bosses even told me they kept me in fish because i was the only one who had a clue...in 3 yrs working thier their average fish death whent from 80% (yes it realy is that high in most petstores unfortunatly) to aproximatly 10% (and most of those were DOA's)
i can also tell you from working there so long that the employees are given NO training...they try to put people who know fish in the fish dept, but were talking part time working teenagers, and when one who knows isnt there or is busy, he who doesnt know is expected to shut up and do it...

well, my "friend" has 2 bettas, there about 4 yrs old she says and suddenly aparently one of them has ich...
now where this fish would have gotten ich from i dont know...but it can happen in bad gravel so whatever...

she whent to petco they handed her a tub of aquarium salt, told her to "dump some of that in, it says how much on the back" and sent her on her way. she aparently talked to multiple empoyees who told her to "just use the salt thatll cure it"...
well...they are the experts right?!


so she posts this on her facebook and i figure hey why not give the fish the best chance at survival...
ich has 4 life stages and its cycle is based on water temperature, the warmer the water the quicker the ich goes through its lifecycle..this is both good and bad.
ich also cannot be fully treated when its attatched to the fish (those little grains of salt, thats the fishes body's reaction to the ich) the ich needs to be fre floating (or in its second stage of life) before it can be properly treated and fully destroyed.
in order to encorage the ich to enter its free-floating stage of life the ideal treatment is to turn the temperature up in your tank...SLOWLY, you dont want to shock the fish, but deally ich becomes free floating and harmless at 85-86 degrees.

once free floating DISSOLVED salt causes the ich to dehydrate and die before it can get inot the gravel bed and reproduce (stage 3 of its life cycle)

but now we have another problem...the salt needs to be disolved and dispersed in the tank water...and aquarium salt for anyone familiar is actually quite a large crystal that even in higher temps takes a little while to properly disolve and then with no current and salt water (even only very mild brine) being heavier than fresh the salt doesnt mix...so the best way to add the salt is to dissolve it first in a little water THEN add it to the tank (or if you have a filter take out the carbon and put your salt dose in the filter the constant moving water hels disolve it...)

so the best way to sucessfully treat ich is to up your temp, dissolve the salt and then add it...keep the temp up and add salt every other day for a week (about 3 treatments) then do a 50% water change...

so i told her this in a frinedly, hey ive been through this heres what you should do because petco empoyees tend to be vauge" kind of way...
her responce

"well i talked to multiple meployees and im going to do it their way"

WTF...

so i posted about 10 direct links to pages on fish keeping hobiest pages and articles on treating ich with aquarium salt to show her im not pulling this info out of my butt...

but right now i dont know why i bothered...i mean i shouldnt HAVE to, they know my experience, they know this is the kind of thing i do on a regular basis....and she couldnt even give me the deacency of a "hey thanks for the info" even if she didnt follow it she could have acnowledged me n a way other than "hey your clueless"

i mean her attitude towardsme with fish info would be like me giving her that kind of responce about a knitting or computer question...this was my living, it was what i did every day in and out for years, its what i do day in and out at home...but no its ok, you should take the advice of some plimply faced teen at petco whos had about as much formal experence in fish keeping as youve had experience ON the moon...

so thats it..im done offering my advice....people have PAID me for this kind of info...right now part of my suplimental income is setting up and maintainning fish tanks in office buildings drs offices and rich peoples homes, i get paid to tell them how to treat issues, things ot look for...heck i get paid to go in there and treat it...and they pay me whether the fish die or not...

sorry, just needed to vent, it realy bothers me when people do stuff liek that...if she gave me advice on a knitting problem i would thank her, do my own research and if it matched up USE the info...but even if it didnt match up or i didnt use it in the end id still THANK her for the info...
*sigh*

im comming swiftly to the conclusion that none of the people i call friends in real life realy give me the respect i deserve, and i doubt any one of them will give me a second thought once i move...so why should i have to stress over it untill then?!
i mean when dad was in hospital spewing blood, not one of them called to see how he (or I) were doing...no "hey if you need anything", or "send our wishes" or "how you holding up?!"
its why it was all over my journal here, people actually showed compassion here, it kept me sane just to have people say "hey itll be ok" or offer me hugs or even the simple act of offering well wishes to my dad...

*shakes head*
im done making the extra effort when they make none.


Edit to add...

now shes arguing with me that the info i provided doesnt count because its for TROPICAL fish...

but betta are tropical fish, they need to be in water between 73 and 86 degrees to survive and thrive...
the only thing i can think of is she must think tropical means salt water as opposed to tempearture...
but seriously i have 5 betta fish right now, my oldest is almost 7 years old...my cousin breeds the dang things, and your gonna argue with me there not tropicals?!

seriously...
there are COLD water fish, these guys like to be under 76 degrees, many cat fish, goldfish koi are COLD water fish...
then theres TROPICALS, these guys need freshwater and temps between 73 and 86 degrees to thrive...
then theres MARINE fish, which can be split into the same 2 categories, cold and tropical...

bettas are freshwater tropicals because they live in fresh water and require "tropical" temperatures......how hard is that to grasp?! aparently very!

 

[pinkfox]

well yesterday i whent to a wedding...
i was suprised to get an invite because i havent hung out with the husband since college and i dont know the wife...but they deemed me worthy of an invite and well...i had a blast.
the ceremony was lovely, they had it by the duck pond in a park, veyr pretty and the weather co-operated.
the reception was held 20 mins from the ceremony site, sucked cause my drive home was alost an hour and a half but...
lovely little place, nice party hall. buffet apetizers, then later buffet dinner, and desert was cake (obviously) and a chocolate fondu/desert buffet. food was lovely. they sat me at a table with a guy i knew from college, weve always got along well so that worked out well the other folks at the table were also cool peoples so we had a good laugh all night. i even got up and danced most of the night away even a couple of slow songs...true none of them with an actual date, but it was nice even just as friends

i felt pretty...
its been a very long time since i could say that about myself...but it did feel pretty.
and most of all...i had fun

dont have any poics yet on the comp of the happy couple...

but heres some of me...
followed by some critter pics just because i can lol.
this is me in april of 2010

this is me last night. aig of 2011

i actually like how my hair and makeup came out...not bad for someone who only rarely does the girly girl stuff

jasper and ruby being incredibly adorable...they love eachother...alot.

Willow is groing into such a very pretty cat. but shes got her mommas voice and her deisre to go outside is starting to grow stronger. planning to have her spayed next month...then it wont be quite so much of a worry.

but as tempi will tell you...shes not quite all growd up yet

and this is what happens when i try to get pictures of jack jack...the camera must be eaten!
and yes he realy is that brightly colored in person, he just turned a year old last monday , his shoulders wings and tail will realy start coloring up over the next year or so now.

 

[Britesea]

Hey Pinkfox, so glad you had fun at the wedding! I am impressed with your before and after pictures; it inspires me to keep trying to lose my excess weight.

I love Jack jack the best, lol. We have two parakeets that despise each other. One of them, Coober Pedy, was traumatized by a previous owner and is terrified of hands, so we just give her food and water and toys, and talk to her thru the cage. I don't think she will ever let someone touch her willingly again. The other one, Jasmine is younger and smaller and is becoming hand tame, but every time we take her out of her cage all she wants to do is fly over to Coober's cage and engage in battle thru the bars (which usually just ends with her getting her toes pinched by Coober)