We're past the point of boredom . . .

Katy has been sick for about three weeks now. Last week she was diagnosed with Bronchitis, so we were not able to go visit my parents while my dad is still recovering from quintuple bypass surgery. I went out and got her two new fish (Bronch and Itis). They are Dwarf Gouramis just like the one our friends bought for us Labor Day weekend. Their plan was to buy us a fish and start a tradition of any friend staying with us feeling like they too should buy us a fish. The friend who came over the next weekend didn't seem to get it. Needless to say, Itis already seems to be dying, which is kind of foreboding since it was named after Katy's illness. I too have gotten sick; it is some virus going around. I have to take some nasty-tasting, codeine-laced robitussin that doesn't work nearly as well as Nyquil.

We've spent our days watching Gilmore Girls. We finished the first season of 21 episodes in 6 days (you do the math). We are about halfway through the second season after 4 days. We've slowed it down a little. We only watched one last night, and the night before we had the horrible idea of watching La Nina Santa (The Holy Girl) instead of Gilmore Girls. It was the first movie in a long time that we even thought of stopping halfway through because it was so incredibly boring. We've been incredibly stir crazy.

It's been almost a month and a half since Normal. We miss Normal. But by the time Normal shows his face again, we will be flung into the holiday season and won't see Normal again until the dreary part of the end of January. Always an optimist.

No Rest For The Wicked

It's been a month. Most recently, we had two friends stay for a weekend. We cut that short to visit my dad, who had quintuple bypass surgery (http://www.inessentials.com/blog/archive/2005/09/10/14_28_20.html). We drove straight back from Wisconsin to pick up a friend at the airport, who stayed with us for a weekend. That weekend was the fall kickoff at church, in which I led two different worship teams in the same service. We dropped our friend off at the airport and drove straight back to Wisconsin for a couple of days. We drove straight back from Wisconsin to lead youth group.

I'll write more once life gets back to normal stress levels.

I killed FDR

We finally got the new filter cartridges for the tanks that we've needed for awhile. But, the new cartridges don't have the bacteria buildup that the tank needs initially, so we had a huge ammonia spike, especially in the top tank. All of the fish on top were gasping, so I moved T and Spike into the bottom tank with Zebedee temporarily. After a day, the ammonia went away in the top tank, but Franklin was so affected by it, that he could barely swim and needed to be flushed. Since Zebedee and Spike did not always get along, I moved Spike back into the top tank. All seem happy now. Except for Franklin; he seems dead.

No Celebrities

Zerostars, my brother-in-law's band, has some updates online including mp3s.

Go see them at http://www.zerostars.com and http://myspace.com/heyzerostars

New Family Member

It's been awhile since I've been able to write, but there's big news. We have a new fish.

Our new fish has his own tank (he's in the new 10gallon). His name is Zebedee because he is a Zebra Angelfish. Well, he looks like a Zebra Angelfish and Gold Angelfish hybrid, but the Zebra is more noticable. He's incredibly shy and loses his coloration instantly when he gets scared. He's a little slow at swimming because he is pretty small so he doesn't swim in the current from the filter. This means out of every 5 pieces of food we feed him, he gets one because the others get swept into the current.

He is a beautiful fish with well-defined fins and great coloration. He's my new favorite.

More like Jesus, Less of Me

I now look more like the realistic Jesus and less like the pictures of Jesus we see everywhere. I have shorter hair and a big nose. The big nose has been there for a while (thanks Thoms) but I got a drastic haircut yesterday. Not drastic like the time that I cut lazerlines into the side of my head or drastic like the time I buzzed all of my hair except for the back (sweet mullet), but drastic like 6+ inches. It's so freeing. No longer do I have the frustration of hair in my eyes constantly. I can now go hiking without wearing a bandana. I can now take a shower at night and not need a bandana. And, we should save some money on curly-hair shampoo, conditioner, and gel. This must've been what Samson felt like when he got rid of Delilah...

One year and counting...

It's been one year. Sunday was our one-year anniversary. Sometimes it seems like that was so long ago and sometimes it seems like it was only yesterday.

Anniversaries are tough. You want to do something memorable but something that represents who you are. You want to do something anniversary-esque but something that's not cliche. All that and on a budget of close to nothing. Needless to say, we made it a whole weekend of festivities.

One of those activities was finishing Prince Caspian, the second of seven of the Chronicles of Narnia. Now onto the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Also, we(I) decided to finally spend one of my birthday gifts from two months ago on a new fish tank. Not the 55-gallon fish tank I've been coveting. We got another 10-gallon tank which sits directly under our other tank. It will be a temporary remedy for our Angelfish which needs at least 30 gallons, but may live alone temporarily in the new 10. The plan was to have the 55 when we moved into our new apartment, but the plan was also to have money to live on, so, with much shegrin(sp?) we decided to eat instead of have the 55.

Someday...