Ich (or ick) is a nasty little protozoan parasite that is often present in commercially bought fish. This is pretty much the major reason to quarantine new fish for a few weeks - so that infections can be caught before introducing them to "clean" tanks. Sure enough, I have an outbreak in my new 55; however, there are only a few cysts so far, so the ( Read more... )

Two completely unrelated things. First, Equate body wash. I picked up a bottle for sensitive skin, labeled "unscented." After I got home, I read the ingredients. Down there at the bottom, under all those chemical names? "Fragrance." Nice going, Wal-Mart. Apparently in their world "unscented" and "fragrance-free" aren't synonyms. (I'm going to give ( Read more... )

Theoretically I have 25 neon tetras in my 2nd 55 gallon tank. I say "theoretically" because I bought them in several batches of 5 and 10, so adding them all up gets me to 25... but trying to count them in the tank? I go "onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightninetenelevenAUGH A LOT" or something like that. XD (Occasionally they'll hold still for a bit ( Read more... )

As a young, fairly inexperienced cook, I depend a great deal on actual measurements in recipes - especially recipes for kinds of food I've never tried to bake before, or have only made once or twice. So one of the things that drives me up the wall when dealing with recipes is the regrettable habit of some recipe authors to use completely imprecise ( Read more... )

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I don't think there's any household chore that feels more domestic to me than ironing. Mostly I iron placemats, but all of them and two shirts and a pair of slacks was up for ironing this laundry cycle, so I spent a while doing that. It's annoying at first (I don't really like ironing!) but there's a sort of zen to it that crops up if I'm not ( Read more... )

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The nice thing about keeping fish is that they take neglect very well, so long as you have an appropriate level of filtration. But every so often, you do have to take things apart and clean them. My own tanks have been neglected far too long now, but my 55 will have to wait - I have scrapbooking stuff all over the living room, taking up the space I ( Read more... )

I've decided that any long-sleeved shirt whose hem is shorter than the sleeve length is too short. Unfortunately this describes most of my long-sleeved shirts. The problem seems to be that the waistlines of pants have migrated downward (low-rise jeans, for example) while shirt hems have stayed at the same position. And who wants a nice little gap ( Read more... )

Yesterday I got a haircut. This is not something I would normally talk about, especially since when I went in I asked for just a TRIM. What I got, on the other hand, was a completely different hairstyle. XP It's not a bad cut or anything - my hairdresser is really good and hasn't ever given me a bad cut - but I have this sneaking suspicion that she ( Read more... )