Maybe the moderator didn't read it too well. Or maybe we kept enough in it about the animals. I think if he wouldn't have put in the "belittling," he wouldn't have offended. I asked a question in another forum a couple weeks ago and he answered it there, so he might have looked at my profile and seen this thread, but I don't know for sure. Or he could have just been going through the threads.

Back out to do more yard work . :rolleyes:

How's the latest edition doing? Did you pick a name yet?

Yum, yard work...
Did a lot of that today too - and yesterday.
It was so hot, I thought I was going to pass out.

What started as tree pruning, resulted in the whole tree having to be cut down.
I'm a bit of a tree hugger, so I am very upset about it.
The tree guy we hired messed up so bad... more like tree mulator...

I don't know if the moderators read all the posts.?

The new addition is doing well...
My daughter has named her Sparkle.
She's "nesting" everywhere except for the box I gave her.
And it's a nice box. If I were a cat, I'd want to be in it. LOL

I find her a lot of times in the newspaper recycling bin.
I found her in a suitcase that I left open on the floor of my closet.
And she likes to get in the bathroom counter under the sink - she'll paw the door open. LOL
She's quite the character.

I'm thinking about giving up my 2 adult African males so that I can free up the tank for more of a community environment.

They're fighting a lot and really despise one another...

I don't know though. I've given up a lot of fish in my time of fish keeping and I have regretted some of them.
I try to think of the fish though instead of my own personal feelings...
It still makes me sad though...

It's only between the mid-50's to the early-70's here. Today the high is 68, so it really isn't that bad. But it looks like it's going to rain, so I don't know how much I'll get to today. Neither of my parents do yard work, so it's up to me. We have five trees in our backyard (in the middle of town, with a small yard), and when the leaves fall, it's a pain to clean up, but I get it done. I end up with like 25-30 bags of leaves till I'm done. And that's packing the bags till nothing else will fit and I can barely close it. I've actually taken ten bags to work and put them in the trash compactor once because I didn't have anywhere to put them.

At least you know not to hire that company the next time you need that tree pruned. Which won't be for quite a while.

Sparkle is a good name. You could try putting her in the box a couple times a day. Hopefully she'll eventually get the hint. Did you put a towel or something soft in it? That'll help if you didn't.

Sometimes doing the right thing isn't easy. Maybe you could just get rid of one and get another one that would be better in the tank with the one you keep.

My high was 85 today - tomorrow is going to be 89 and the nights are low 70's...
I didn't go outside today LOL
I don't like it when the heat first comes, it takes a little while for me to adjust before it doesn't bother me.
I have to give you credit for cleaning up that many leaves.
That's a hard job. Great exercises, but it's not any fun.

I'm starting to get excited about the kittens.
I'm all curious about what they're going to look like.

Sparkle and her kittens are probably going to cost me a lot of money, so
I was thinking I'll probably hold off on changing my tanks around for now.
It will give me some time to think about what I want to put in it too...

I thought I responded already. Oh well. I mowed the grass today after work because it's supposed to pour tomorrow. Didn't get to it on the weekend. Finally, the grass isn't a foot high. :D

If you plan on getting her fixed before you find a new home for her, then she'll definitely cost you a lot of money. I have had a couple people tell me that when you put up signs for a cat, when the people call, you should ask for like $25 for him/her, so you get someone who actually wants it. You can say to help cover the costs of the neutering. Or you can ask the person to come to their house to visit every couple of months or something, and if they say no, then don't give them the cat. There are people who go around looking for free cats to take to a lab to test products on, and a lot of the cats die, or have a horrible life. Anyone who is seriously thinking about keeping the cat will say yes to either or both of those things.

You'll have to take pictures of the kittens when they are a couple of weeks old.

I don't know if you want to read the next part. It is just me venting about my mom.

I have a bad short term memory (or a short attention span, whatever you want to call it), and there is an article that a recent study shows that people with chronic back pain have a bad short term memory. I always forget to take my clothes out of the dryer, and on Saturday I forgot to do it after my mom asked me to. She sat there and said to my dad that I am lazy. Like I wasn't five feet away and couldn't hear her. So I sent her the article, and she sent it back to me. I asked her why and she said, "Well, you sent it too me." Which makes no sense to me. I said to her that was because she sat there and said I was lazy, the one who does ALL of the outside work by herself, and cleans the third floor (my room) by herself, AND is trying to fix up the basement, all by herself. She said she never said it. "I never said you are lazy." HA. Yeah right.

So of course we are in a fight now. I said to her, "Yes you did. I was sitting right there when you said it. I'm not stupid and I can hear." And then I told her I think she has dementia. I work in a retirement home. I would know. So she tells me I'm a liar. I said, "Why did you even have me if you never wanted me?" which is totally off the subject, but I was really upset, because she does this to me all the time (says I'm lazy and says something bad about me then denies it and calls me a liar). She said, "That's not what we're talking about."

One we weren't TALKING, we were screaming at each other. Two, she didn't deny it. If your mother wanted you at some point in your life, don't you think she would deny that and say, "I love you, of course I wanted you?" No, my mom just says, "That's not what were talking about."

I know, stupid things to argue about, but hey, I don't get along with her at all, because everything always has to be about her and how tough her life is. Like no one else has ever had a tough life. I asked her once if a friend could stay for a couple of days, she was having a really tough time. My mom said no, because when she was this lady's age, no one ever helped her out. I don't understand what that had to do with anything.

I actually went to a psychiatrist for like ten visits because of my mom, but the lady didn't help. She kept saying talk to your mom about it, but trying to talk to her and getting her to give any is like trying to demolish a thick brick wall with your shoulder.

Sorry about all of the complaining, but I needed to get it out.

I understand Daisy.
If you need to vent, you go right ahead.
I actually have more to write back to you,
But my kids are being bad right now, so I need to give them baths and put them to bed...
I'll be back to finish it later...
Till then try to do something that relaxes you... I like watching my fish when I'm upset... go say hello to your Oscar...

Oh yeah, since my room is on the third floor, usually when it starts turning 50 at night, it's like 70 something in my room, so I get used to it really quick. I don't put my air conditioner in until my thermostat goes past the highest mark, which is 90, and stays there for a while when it starts cooling down. The high outside today was like 70 or something and it's at least 82 in my room. That's now, at almost 8 at night. I don't think you would like my room. :D

Check your PM

Your room is probably so hot because the heat is rising to the top floor.

We don't really have a gradual temperature change here.
It pretty much goes from cold (30-50 LOL) to 80 or above practically overnight.
Then the really hot weather kicks in around mid May.
Thanks to the norths sub zero temperatures this past winter we got 1 day we had a tad bit of snow.
It was really great fun...

Tomorrow is tank cleaning day for me.
I'm hoping I'll get some good pictures.
Usually after I clean the tanks and rearrange things, the little guys
Come out of their territory and you can see them real good.
I'm going to try to get some good pictures of them for you to see.

It feels like it does it overnight here sometimes, but I know it doesn't. I'm glad you enjoyed the snow. I hate snow. I never call off work, so I always have to drive there in it. (24/7 hour facility, so you can even go in with a snow emergency. Yuck!)

Have fun cleaning your tank! :D I did that over the weekend. Pictures would be good. I'm really interested in seeing what they look like.

Got to go or be late for work.

I just got home and someone ate Oscar! :( The kenyi wasn't eaten, just laying there when I found him, but someone (or a couple someone's) actually ate my oscar. :( I loved my oscar. His eyes and his fins were gone. I guess no more oscars. I'm surprised they didn't go for all the littler ones first, went right for a big one. And of course I won't know which one did it because all of them but the plec's are carnivore's, I think. I think it might be one of the convicts, but again, not sure. When I had just the convicts and two small tanks, I had two dwarf frogs that were eaten (never found them) and one of the other convicts was eaten and a betta, because I heard putting one betta in with the fish would be okay, but they ate him anyway. He stayed in a little corner by himself and the one day I came down and he was gone. I was told it was because of the frogs, but the frogs were gone by then, too.

Do you think I should feed them twice a day instead of just once? I bought shrimp pellets for the raphael's because I didn't know where I'd be able to find live brine shrimp. I'm afraid they would over take the tank any way. Or crawl out and die and have a horrible smell. :eek: Do you think I would be OK with snails (I think they have one called a mystery snail?? ) and a turtle? I know someone who has a turtle in her tank and I am intigued by it. I already have reptile pellets, which are supposed to be OK for amphibians. I bought them for the frogs.

Guess what. The sky was blue today. All day. Not one drop of rain.

One of my favorite Romance authors, Cathy Maxwell, is in need of a title for her new book, so she put up a post for suggestions (not on this board). What do you think? (do you like romance novels?)

Loved by a Highlander <---
Is This Love? <---
Touched by Love
Touched By Desire
Hot Scot <---
Tempting Fate
Burning Need
Burning Desire
Burning Love
For the Love of a Scot <---
Ransom for Love
Surprising Love
Unexpected Love
Unexpected Desire

My personal favorites are the ones that have arrows. I'm a nut for historical romances, and I especially love the ones with scots or the highlands. Oh, I want to go to Scotland so bad. I like mysteries a lot too. The one I'm reading now is called Always Time to Die by Elizabeth Lowell. Actually, I just started it. On page six. Do you like to read? If you do, what do you like reading?

I'm sorry to hear that Daisy.
It could be the convicts, but it could also have been the Africans too.
They are mean fish.
The baby Oscar was probably just to young to defend himself.

Oscars (some of them) can be really mean as babies, but I only witnessed that once.

I also had a young red devil kill a young Oscar before...

Unfortunately it's a risk to take when mixing South, Central, and African Cichlids.
Sometimes they do all right together, and sometimes they don't.
I never had any luck keeping any of them together, but I know of a few people who have been successful at it.

The fish you have may kill snails, I've only kept snails in non aggressive tanks. So I don't know if they'd do OK or not.

I've never heard of a turtle that didn't need land?

I had a turtle once.
It was nasty.
I put it out at the pond thinking it would have a better life
And it ran away.
He probably died because besides the pond, there was no other water.
And he was a land/water turtle.

They carry a lot of germs and diseases humans can get too.
I didn't know that until mine had been long gone, but apparently
They carry some parasites and salmonella.

Today's tank cleaning isn't going so well.
Last time I cleaned my tanks, I left my Python outside on my deck.
When I went to get it today, I noticed my dog had chewed the hose up - so I couldn't use it.

So I decided to do the buckets.
Well, I walked out of the room to dump a bucket.
I had put the hose to the syphon back into the tank so that I didn't have to start it again.
Well, it fell out and about 25 gallons of dirty tank water poured onto my floor before I got back in there.
It's been a disaster... so far.
I need to buy another python hose attachment.

My top 3 would be:
Loved by a Highlander
Tempting Fate
For the Love of a Scot

I don't know if I have a favorite kind of book because I read a little of this and a little of that.

I absolutely loved The Notebook. The movie was great, but the book was fantastic.

Message in a Bottle was 100 times greater than the movie.

The Perfect Storm was better than the movie.

(I think they are by the same author, not sure, but I'd have to say those were my 3 favorite books)

I've read a lot of books written by psychotherapits (self help book) and books about dealing with depression.

Right now I'm reading Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen for the second time. Kind of like a self help book but with religion in it.

I tried reading a self help depression book before but it just made me feel worse, so I stopped. Guess it was the wrong book.

I'll finish tomorrow. It's started lightening really bad just now.

:eek: I hate lightning.
Once when I was 19, I was talking on the phone to my husband (boyfriend at the time) during a
Thunder storm and lightning came through the phone line.
I wasn't seriously hurt (even though it hurt really bad) but it knocked me across the room.
Amazingly, my sister had just walked into the room and was asking me something, so I had the phone away from my ear.
My fingers got the worst of it - although it felt like my whole body had been zapped real good - probably was...

I'm a horrible photographer.
Every now and then, I'll get a really good picture,
But this is the best I have gotten so far.
I'm still taking them, so hopefully I'll get some good ones.
Not all the fish are cooperating.
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I hope your day went better today. Those pictures are pretty good. I like the colors of the second one (the yellow one) the best.

I would have to ask that lady about her turtle. I have no idea what kind it is.

I actually have two depression self help books. It's been a long time since I've tried to read them (well, not that long, maybe three years at most). The one is Breaking the Patterns of Depression by Michael D Yapko. Came out in '97. It makes you analyze your life and other things and tries though help you find the good in yourself. (I was in a really bad spot at that point in my life.)
He has Learn By Doing sections in each chapter. I don't understand how all of them help you. One example is Learn By Doing #4:

Purpose: To help you consider the role of medication in your case by evaluating what is hype, misconception and good common sense in the opinion of others.

Many people still hold the naïve and outdated notion that to take a medication for depression is a personal weakness. Yet Prozac has caught on with people in ways no other drug ever has. Why do you think this is so? After you list your own reasons, ask at least a half a dozen other people for their perspective on Prozac– why it’s so popular, when they think its use is appropriate, and when they think it is inappropriate. What do you find out?

The chapter is supposed to be about taking action to help yourself feel better, but I don’t understand how learning about Prozac is supposed to make you feel better about yourself. I tried to do this and everyone was like, "Are you taking Prozac or thinking about it?" No one wanted to answer the question. I guess this book would help a lot of people, but it didn’t work for me.

I tried reading The Purpose Driven Life, but he repeated himself in every chapter. I remember I felt like he was trying to brain wash whoever was reading the book. Did that a couple years ago too.

I’m sorry to hear about the lightening striking you when you were younger. The charge was most likely going through your whole body. I have heard of people who get hit directly and their whole body swells up. I personally love lightening and thunder storms. They calm me down. I used to always feel like some of my anger was coming out in them. Now they just relax me.

The book that was talking about Prozac, in my opinion, was trying to persuade you to take the medication... and if not that one, some drug for depression.
I guess I was reading more along the lines of positive thinking books.
I stay away from antidepressants and mood stabilizers now and I truly feel better than I ever have by going all natural.
Joel osteen book is really good.
I've noticed that he repeats himself a bit, but I don't mind it because what he's saying is really good - plus I've forgotten by that time and I look at it as a reminder.
Reading that book has given me a better outlook on life.
I checked it out from the library before I decided to buy it.

It drives me nuts when an author repeats him or herself. That's why I can't read that type of book. I feel like yelling, "You said that already, go to the next subject!"