Booberry One Month Later

Look – I’m just going to stop saying anything about my absences because they keep happening and there really isn’t a good excuse. I’m flaky!

It’s almost one month since Icepocalypse 2023 happened, and our insurance adjuster won’t be out to look at the damage until Thursday this week. All the contractors we called to get estimates on repairs, have not called back. It’s been fun.

Anywho, the actual point to this post is as advertised in the title. My sweet little Booberry has been with me a month now and I’m starting to see some color come back. I’ve added more plants to his aquarium along with a few bottom feeder friends. (Might be getting some floating plants this week.) For tank mates, I decided on panda corydoras. They’re super cute. Luckily, when they were introduced, Booberry checked them out and then did not care one bit about their presence. I’ve watched one swim right into him and he’s just too chill to care. There are three of them so Mr. C&M decided they should be called Lock, Shock and Barrel from Nightmare Before Christmas. I agreed wholeheartedly.

Thanks to this first betta rescue, I’ve become obsessed with both bettas and aquariums again. I’ve really enjoyed learning about aquascaping, and all the plants that come along with it. I haven’t read a book in about a month because my nose is constantly in my iPad watching YouTube videos and researching any questions I have.

Which, leads me to the latest development…

Meet my latest rescue! *Insert hysterical laughter here*

This little guy is barely old enough to be sold. He’s very skinny because the pellets they’re trying to feed him don’t even fit in his tiny mouth. He has pretty much starved with food right in front on him. I just got him yesterday and I didn’t think he was going to make it. He pulled through the night and perked up a bit. No name until it seems like he’s going to be okay. I haven’t decided whether I will keep him or adopt him out. Time will tell.

If I’m absent again, just know that I’m somewhere, doing fish related stuff like setting up a hospital tank and planning future tanks. :3

Give me your best aquarium tips if you’ve got ’em!

Operation: Fish Rescue

One might think, can you rescue a fish? And the answer is, yes. From poor care by either people or the corporations that sell them. Now, it’s not actually something I had even thought about until IG showed me videos of a couple of ladies and their quests to revive sick fish/eels.

It also happens that stores tend to take very poor care of one of my very favorite fish. Bettas.

I’ve had many bettas in my life. I bought and kept countless ones when I was younger. My last one was in 2011. I was an adult at that point and took better care of things, so he lived for a few years if I remember correctly.

Not long after this realization, I found myself at a grocery store that just so happens to sell fish and what do you know? They were taking poor care of their bettas. Not all were sick but there were a few, unhealthy fellows. Convincing the cashier to give him to me for free took no effort. She promptly said, “YUCK!” and gave him to me. So that’s how I ended up with this guy:

As you can see, his color is bleached from all of his fins and head. Luckily, I don’t think he has fin rot but he was on his way. I don’t have fish, so I had to go out and buy all this stuff to essentially use as a hospital tank to nurse him back to health.

This has led me down the rabbit hole that is proper betta care. Little me would have had her mind blown at what crappy lives she was giving her bettas. (Although still better than in the stores.) It will probably take him about a month or so to heal. So, now the plan is to get a 5-gallon tank and try my hand at live plants, something I’ve never done. Should this little guy live, he’ll have a cool new home and a much more entertaining life. No name until he makes it. (Plus, I’m kind of married to naming him Booberry but I have a feeling he’s going to have a lot of teal and green once he’s healed. Not a color match to Booberry cereal.)

Long story short, welcome to my new obsession. Bettas and aquariums, as now I’m half tempted to just continue to rescuing bettas. Hard part would be finding them all homes though.

What’s your favorite fish??

First Book Haul of 2023

Even when money is tight, sometimes you just gotta treat yo self.

As a mood reader, the one thing I did not have in my collection to quench a thirst if it popped up, was any non-fiction. I’ve always liked learning and even though I’m in school currently, my brain still wants more.

This is my second ever order from Bookoutlet.com. Their prices are pretty incredible. I bought 7 books for $38. (That tops what I spend in all of 2022 on books but who cares?! Books!)

The tantalizing box!

True crime, non-fiction, mystery, dogs. The range is good with this lot. I’ve already started Death’s Acre so expect a review of that in the near future.

What treasures did you get in your latest book haul??

Riddle Master Update

Ridley does not recognize Day Light Savings time. We should be getting an extra hour sleep but instead, I’ve already had my coffee because once I’m awake, I’m awake. It’s hard to stay mad at someone so especially cute though. He’s technically correct and it’s our usual time to get up and start the workday.

So, I thought, what better time to post a Ridley update? He has made a few appearances in posts but nothing substantial.

This boy is an absolute snuggle master. I’ve never had a dog that tried their best to melt into you. He loves kisses and boops my face when I haven’t given him enough. Seriously, each check, his forehead and sides and top of his nose must be kissed before he’s satisfied. He will happily sleep on top of myself or Mr. C&M which has been something to get used to. He sometimes lays his muzzle on top of my mouth and nose while I’m sleeping. I keep telling myself he’s not trying to snuff me out, but I could be wrong. There are worse ways to go.

In the beginning of October, we had a medical emergency with Ridley. What the vet thought to be torn soft tissue from a bad jump, ended up being an abscess that ruptured 36 hours later. Of course, after the vet was closed. Luckily for us, we have a vet tech friend that I was able to call. She walked us through how to take care of him until morning. If you’ve never experienced an abscess rupture, it’s horrifying, and I will never forget that smell. By the time we saw the vet the next day, they pretty much said to keep doing what we were already doing and added painkillers and antibiotics. This meant keeping him bandaged while the wound finished draining (days) and keeping him calm until the wound healed on its own.

After the initial horror show, he was a model patient. The first night, I was the only one he allowed to bandage him. The pain brought back his association of pain with men, and he would not allow Mr. C&M to touch him the first night. Later, he sweetly apologized to his dad for being mean by sulking up to him and covering him in kisses. From then on, we had no more issues taking care of him. (In the second picture above, you can see his injured shoulder after it closed up.)

November 12th will be 3 months since we rescued him. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind but we’re making baby step progress. The injury definitely set him back socially. The pain triggered his mistrust of humans again. So, it’s like we’re starting fresh and that’s okay. Recovery can’t be rushed.

BEEFCAKE.

He is finally at a healthy weight. He hasn’t been to the vet since his injury, but I think he’s right around 47 pounds. (He was only 30 when he arrived at the shelter. Skin and bones.)

Animal rescue is a journey. He’s recovery won’t happen overnight, but I am so glad to have this boy in my life. He’s an absolute clown and love bug. I can’t wait to share the holidays with him. He’s going to love it.

Lazy Rivers & Plague Doctors

The weekend following Labor Day (yes, I’m STILL catching up) was Riptide 2022 at Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio. It’s a several day competition of Rivals of Aether and Smash Brothers. Mr. C&M competed and the rest of us got to tag along at a significantly reduced price thanks to the tournament. Mr. and Mrs. Ignited Moth kindly joined us and made the long weekend SO much more fun.

For two days, we had the entire waterpark pretty much to ourselves. No lines for the slides, no one else cruising the lazy river. No children screaming. THAT was the life. Swim up bars might be my new favorite thing. Especially when it was actually a swim up hot tub. I think our bones were cooked to jelly by the time we left.

It was the relaxing weekend (except for Mr. C&M, he was stressed competing) that we all needed. We plan to make this an annual event.

Note to anyone thinking of going to Kalahari – the booze is very expensive and only one drink was really worth the money. Food was also expensive but incredibly good. There is plenty to do in the resort. We didn’t leave other than to get supplies for the entire 4 days we were there. The arcade is NOT worth it. The crane machines purposely drop your grab halfway to the hole, every single time. How did we get the plushies below? TOO much money and some were purchased at the convention.

I’ve also decided to keep a travel notebook. It’s a fun way to track what we did while on vacation and also a good reference guide for when we return to places. (This place had amazing food! This place was garbage!)

Does anyone else keep a travel notebook? What fun things do you keep in there?

Special thanks to the Moths for making our weekend an absolute blast and being the BEST travel buddies! ❤

A River Runs Through It

Oh yeah, I totally jacked that title just because a river runs through my town.

The last couple of weeks have felt very hectic. We’ve been doing something every weekend, so it was good to take a morning and sit by the river. Mr. C&M loves to fish, so he fed all his worms to the nice fish while I took pictures and just soaked in calm, lazy river atmosphere.

Chicory

What was your favorite thing that you did this past week/weekend?

Happy Place

Welcome to my new happy place folks. Mr. C&M and I were wandering around, checking out state parks and happened across this secluded fellow.

Spiderworts

It’s a state park and waterfowl preserve. Certain times of the year, endangered bird species come here to reproduce. No boats allowed and you can only fish during certain months of the year (the ones opposite of breeding season). So, Mr. C&M took up his reel and caught a decent number of perch and sunfish while I wandered around taking pictures of everything under the sun with my fancy camera. (These are phone photos.)

A small herd of deer came down and walked through the water, not caring very much that I was there. A great blue heron flew back and forth across the lake catching his breakfast. Massive bullfrogs called to one another and there were red-winged blackbirds everywhere. The air randomly smelled of wild roses. It was perfect and it’s only 20 minutes from our house. With gas prices being so high, this is probably where you will find us for most of the summer.

For anyone interested, there is a wonderful app called iNaturalist, where you can take pictures of plants and search their database in order to learn what you’re looking at. That is how I learned that this lovely purple flower is called Spiderworts. Not sure what it did to deserve that name but there you have it.

I hope you’re finding peace in your day-to-day. ❤

Pulled

Potted, Planted, Pulled. We have a theme going with titles here. Everything is plant related recently. I hope you’re enjoying it because it’s what I have going on right now.

I’m still plucking away at Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb. It’s 700+ pages and I’m only sitting down to read it once or twice a week.

This past weekend was the last Saturday to go harvest invasive species at the local fen. I went the week before that however a thunderstorm rolled in. It was the day after a tornado hit the town where I grew up, so I wasn’t so trusting that Mother Nature would be gentle even though another volunteer claimed that, “We’re here to help Mother Nature, she will take care of us.” I bailed.

Pretty field, yes? This is the plant we were pulling. Beautiful, but invasive, Dame’s Rocket.

After that, we spent the entire Memorial Day weekend with Mr. and Mrs. Moth at their place. We bowled, we partied, we ate fantastic food, and we had a drunken night in the hot tub. It was exactly what we needed.

When was your last forest adventure and what was your favorite thing that you saw?

Planted

You guys. I am out of control.

I made friends with the owner of a nursery in town. He’s going to supply all my crazy ideas I have brewing. This is probably trouble.

Sunday, I spent several hours weeding, transplanting lilies and planting annuals. I somehow pulled a muscle in my neck doing it and am now living on ibuprofen.

As you can see, I went with a black, purple and yellow color scheme. (Our house is pale yellow.) this year I chose pansies and a new discovery to me, double petunias. I highly dislike petunias but DOUBLE petunias are cool and apparently hail from Victorian times. SOLD.

I also purchased four sweet basil plants and a rosemary plant.

My zinnias are sprouting but no sign of the pepper plants yet.

We also have a new plan for a part of our backyard that doesn’t grow much grass.

SEND HELP.

What is your favorite flower?

Potted

The quest this summer is maximum living. I’m on a never-ending quest of fun. (Outside of work because I can’t escape that currently.) Photography, dog training, hiking, disc golf, hanging out with friends, volunteering, traveling, etc.

See? That’s quite a bit of stuff planned.

Why not add one more thing to that list?!

While I’ve been planning to transplant some lilies and eventually pop some annuals in for easy color, I wasn’t planning on going gardening crazy. Then, I was at the store for something completely unrelated, I began flicking through their seeds for sale. They were cheap and here we are:

Mr. C&M requested the cherry tomato plants. So, for our first ever veggie garden (I had them when I was little, before I met my husband. My grandparents were big gardeners) we’re attempting to grow tomatoes and a variety of peppers. As food prices continue to grow, I thought it an advantageous venture. We’ll see what happens!

This past weekend was great. We spent a lot of time with friends, but it all started with going out to a super fancy restaurant as a belated birthday gift. It’s been a minute since we had a date night, and the food was beyond amazing. The desserts were absolutely to die for and we’re planning a dessert and drinks night with Mr. and Mrs. Moth sometime in the future.

Behold! My chocolate berry cake. That’s a chocolate cake with a citrus ganache and mixed berry sorbet. In the background, Mr. C&M’s super fancy pineapple upside cake.

What is the best dessert you’ve had recently??