Day

Today was my day off. I say "was" instead of "is" seeing as how if I had been at work I'd be home by now. I slept in till nine o'clock, and then got up and got ready to do some errands. Primarily to get my hair cut, cuz it was looking scraggly and had been driving me crazy. Example, new hair-cut:

Hmm... Not entirely sure you can really see the haircut all that well. Anyway. It looks cute in real life, and I guess this means I'll have to get used to using less shampoo and conditioner again.

After the hair-cut, I proceeded to Wal-Mart to buy a few more seed packets (more about this later) and then accross the street to Panera, where I had a breakfast of a bagel, pastry, and hot chocolate (oh yeah, I am soooo on a diet. Uh huh. Really.) I read a bit of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe while I was there.

I then went to visit Nick's Gramma, and spent a couple of hours sitting and chatting with her. Which was very nice. I wish my grandma and pa-pa lived closer to me.

And then I went home and I planted my seeds. My sweet wonderful and handsome husband surprised me yesterday by buying me a little miniature greenhouse and some seeds, so that I could start planting an herb garden.

There is really no good way to take a picture of it right now, but once they start growing I'll be sure to get pics. So hopefully by summer I will have parsley, cilantro/coriander, dill, lavender, peppermint, oregano, sage, basil, chives, and thyme. I'm very excited!

And here is our snake looking cute:

"You're using coconuts!"

Pet talk. I have hermit crabs. Of all the pets we currently have, I have had the hermit crabs the longest. And considering the way the majority of pet enthusiasts treat hermies, that's saying something. Most people will toss one or two in a little carrier with some food, substrate, and water and be done with it. Ergo, they don't last very long. Throw-away pets.

People think they are boring. I guess they don't really pay attention to them, or they have completely unrealistic expectations. It's pretty cool watching them change shells, or have feeler fights. And you would never expect me to say that they are one of the louder pets we have, but they sure can cause a racket clanking around their cage. Oh how I wish everyone would do research before buying a pet.

Here are some of the basics about hermit crab care:

• Substrate: Hermit crabs need to be able to dig in the substrate in order to molt. They need enough depth to be submerged by several inches, and the required depth increases depending on the size of the hermit crab. The substrate has to be something that can hold form so they can create little caves. Sand is good. Coconut fiber is good, especially if you mix some calci-sand into it (they need the calcium to help replenish their exo-skeletons). Gravel is right out.
• Water: A shallow pool of water that is free from all the chemical additives we put in our water is needed. Shallow enough that the hermies can sit in it to help moisten their gills without drowning. A sea-sponge added to the dish will help retain moisture and up the humidity in the tank. If you can have a second pool with salt water in it also, even better.
• Humidity/Temperature: Hermies need a certain amount of moisture to be able to breathe. They are from very warm, beachy areas, and the better you can replicate that environment, the better off they will be. It's especially hard in the winter-time, so I hook up a small under-tank heater to the side of the tank to help with the heat, and keep a lid that has just enough ventilation. This combined with the shallow and spongy water dish is usually enough to keep it in the right range.
• Food: A variety of food is nice, though given too much variety mine have now rejected all powdered hermit crab foods aside from a fruit and flower mixture. They also like dried fruit and fresh veggies.
• Shells: The comfort of your hermit crab will largely depend on the shell he is in. Different breeds tend to prefer different shaped openings, and their needs to be a wide variety of appropriately sized shells for each hermit crab to choose from. Each time they molt they are likely to want to switch shells, and even a few times in between. Sometimes they just like changing clothes. The painted shells are awful though. Tacky and often toxic once the paint starts chipping off.
• Climbing areas: Hermies love to explore! Mine love climbing up grape vines in the terrarium, and shredding cork bark, and getting into all sorts of mischief. They like the security of having places to hide in, and the room to stretch their legs both horizontally and vertically.
• Friends: Despite the name, hermit crabs are not hermits. They like companionship, and you will often find all of them piled on top of each other or sitting side by side on branches.

Now that I've said all of that, here are the issues I'm having with my hermies right now, and my possible thoughts on what the problem is. I started with five hermit crabs in this terrarium. I have had all of them for a while, ranging from four years to one year. When I moved up here I had them in a ten gallon tank with sand substrate. As soon as they all finally reemerged from hiding and molting below the surface, I switched the substrate to a coconut fiber base with some calci-sand mixed in. This has several advantages, one being that it doesn't show all the mess that i'm not able to clean up due to them burying themselves for a month at a time, and another being that coconut fiber is much much cheaper than good sand. I've been wanting to get a larger enclosure for them for a while, I am at my limit for a ten-gallon tank, but when I upgrade I want it to be a major upgrade that will last, and that hasn't happened yet. In the meantime, the hermies I have keep growing, and I think they are starting to feel more and more crowded. I'm pretty sure one of the hermit crabs was eaten by the others during it's vulnerable molt time, and now i'm worried about one of the others too. They are starting to make a huge mess of the coconut fiber, and spending a lot of extra time buried for the day too. I'm not sure what to make of it, or what my next course of action should be. I can't dig up the crabs and redo their entire tank set-up because they might be molting and I could accidently kill them. I think I may be stuck for a while until I can get a larger tank and start to slowly move them over to it as they reemerge.

Thoughts anyone? Especially you, Allison, oh fellow keeper of hermit crabs?

Housekeeping Update

Under the Elsewhere category, I added a link to the blog I kept before this one. Partially for my own ease in referring back to it should I ever need to, and partially because I was on occasion amusing and/or interesting prior to starting here. So I figured I'd put it out there if anyone is interested. I'm debating copying some of the book review parts over someday. Especially because I think everyone should read The Ordinary Princess.

Jungle (cat)

This is my favorite plant right now. I've had it for a while now, and even though some blooms will die off, more just keep coming. And even when it finally does stop blooming, the foliage is every bit as beautiful by itself, and I'm hoping it will keep for a very long time. It's called a cyclamen, and I think it is one of the best indoor plant investments you could make.

Rumpels agrees.

Soon To Be Read

I started The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe again this morning. It's not a hard and fast rule, but generally I reread certain books at certain times of year. I tend to read Villains by Necessity in the late summer/early fall and I always start the Chronicles of Narnia again at the end of winter. It's the time when all the world and my spirit need renewing after a long time trapped under the cold and dark. Of course the Narnia stories properly begin with LWW, (Don't believe the new editions that start with Magician's Nephew. They're wrong.) and LWW is the perfect book for going from winter to spring. Plus it starts to get me ready for Easter. Remember Aslan saying that he has let us come to know him a little there, so that we might come to know Him better there.

I'm not sure what this will mean for my little book reviews yet. They are all wonderful, and I've already read them, and if you will recall I told you all when I started this blog that if you hadn't read them to go away and do that now.

I meant that, by the way. If you still haven't read them then go find copies right now. I have some that I'll lend you. Watching the movies doesn't count either. The only time watching the movie could conceivably replace reading the book is with The Princess Bride and that is a very special circumstance that we'll go into at another time.

Have you gone to start reading the books yet? Did we root all the non-Narnians out?

Very well then. Let us continue on the journey.

Recently Read

A Misplaced Trust: Rediscovering Our Lost Identity and Mission
Dr. Will Langford

This won't be a normal book review. The reason is that I know the author of this book. He was the pastor of my home church for a long time before he felt called to minister somewhere else. He is a wonderful man, and an excellent pastor, and helped make a very bad transition in my life quite a bit better. This is his first book and he didn't ask me to review it. I'm an artist and I'm trained to critique and critique hard. If you ever ask me to review something, prepare to have it ripped apart in a kind and constructive way, provided I have the energy. You haven't seen that yet in this blog because the books I've read most recently have been pretty much excellent.

But like I said, Will didn't ask me to review his book, I just asked to read the signed copy he gave to my parents cuz I like him, and I liked the idea of the book, and really, I'll read anything provided it isn't moving to quickly. So I'm just going to talk about it's purpose and recommend it.

A Misplaced Trust addresses the place our churches have found in our current society. It's a particularly important book right now because it points out the way so many Christians have replaced living a Christ-filled life with voting in favor of the Republican party. As if by picking out the candidate that opposes abortion and gay marriage is the same as affecting our culture in a vital way. People who are looking towards the coming presidential election with despair should bear this in mind.

The church does not exist to put certain politicians in power. It exists to fulfill the Great Commission. Changing our world does not start with who you vote for, it starts with changing ourselves and our communities, with living our lives the way we were meant to. The majority of the book looks at the current state of most churches and tries to bring to light ways to address the problems.

White

Everything is white outside. I have a new job and new hours to adapt to. Everyone is ready for the season to change but it hasn't yet. SG-1 is over until the movie comes out on tuesday. These are all reasons why I haven't been online lately. When I come home from work I've either been feeling like spring-cleaning or vegging on the sofa. I think it will take me a little while to sort out how to do everything I used to during the day while Nick was at work. I'm actually working full-time hours now, so I need to learn to have a little bit more effective time management skills.

I'm sitting at my spiffy new desk set-up now. My sweet husband rearranged the desk that used to have two computers on it so that now it just has my one pc on it and lots of desk space for me to write and spread out papers that I'm working on, bills I'm paying, etc.

And speaking of bills, I think that with this new job, and Nick's recent raise, we'll finally be able to start paying things off properly. Like all those scary school loans. I'm really glad I went to college and all, especially since that's where Nick and I met, but my goodness do they ever overcharge.

So there's a brief apology post. Once I can sort out where my free time should fit in I'll hopefully be on the computer more often. Also, I really ned to go through all my computer files: get rid of extra pictures, go through songs, clean up itunes, get rid of programs and documents that are outdated now, that sort of thing. It's part of my spring cleaning mood. So hopefully that will get me online again.