do you hear what I hear?

As you may have noticed, by about oh say NOVEMBER 1st, I had already failed NaBloPoMo. I tried though, I mean, even if it wasn't going to be 30 posts in 30 days, I wanted to come darn close. And up until the 18th I was doing "ok" *ahem*

That's enough said about that. I have missed so many things in my blogging absence. Seriously, why have a blog if you're not going to blog? It adds stress to my life when i DON'T. So I do. Or at least in my head i do...

Today I had a family photoshoot out in bloomfield... which brings me to the real part of this post. Yesterday came the abrupt end to our indian summer when the fierce lake effect snow from lake erie blew in across our region. I like snow... when I don't have to get anywhere near it. It is quite pretty though, and while I was driving along the back country roads on my way back from the shoot, I passed by some very beautiful horses chowin' some hay. I decided to turn around and go back figuring that on this narrow back road, as dangerous as it might be to turn around in snow and ice, there would surely be no cars coming the other direction. Turns out I was wrong... and escaped a near mishap in my quest to photograph a horse.



They were very nice horses. Enjoying standing in the snow about as much as I was. If it weren't for the fence between us, which i realized after touching it that it was probably electric and just wasn't on *at the moment* they would have licked my hand.



I'm having a dilemma with these pictures though. Normally I don't vacillate so much when editing photos, but this time I am. So you can help me out. I put them side by side in both color and very lightly toned bw





What do you think?

I kinda think that he's asking me "do you hear what I hear?" I could be wrong... but i swear i heard him say that...

Killa's got a brand new bowl

In front of me right now sits two notebooks, with numerous pages filled with random scribblings. Notes while I'm on the phone, lists of things to do and little doodly-doos.

One of the lists though is labeled "general todo (personal)"

Things that I need to get done, but seem to end up doing so many other things before. At the top of that list was cleaning out the fish bowl. You see, about 2 months ago I had a tragedy here. Sting passed away, due to a toxic environment... when I was little, I had fish, and because I would clean their bowl multiple times a week, their life expectancy was rather short...

So, when I took up owning a fish this time, I thought it would be better to just leave the bowl alone... apparently 6 months is too long...

RIP Sting. RIP.

But I did enjoy having a little friend around. So a new fish came along, his name is Killa.



And he has been due for a cleaning... so yesterday I set to work to give him some fresh water. Problem is that today, the water still hasn't unclouded... I exchanged about 75% of the water for new water, but it it still reeeeallyyy dirty looking. Ugh.



When I bought this plant back in May or so it only had 6 leaves on it. I thought I was going to kill it because the tops would stick out of the water and dry out and turn brown. So I pulled all the dead stuff off and wouldn't ya know, that little plant has flourished! Its has about 13 leaves on it now and new ones just keep growing! So much cooler than plastic ;)



I couldn't believe how much algae I sucked up out of the stones. Waaaaayyy more than I expected.



This time too I separated all the big rocks from the little pebbles. I like the way it looks with the bigger rocks on top and because I've not sorted them out after cleaning the last couple times I've cleaned it they were pretty much all mixed together.

Please don't judge me now... I swear, I really do have better things to do with my time than blogging about cleaning a fish bowl... ;)

not for the faint of heart

a week and a half ago, I realized that I wasn't living alone in this apartment.

No sir, I had a friend who made his presence known late one friday night by hopping across my kitchen floor. Did you know that mice hop?

I was so thoroughly grossed out by it I tried chasing it down to get rid of it then and there but was unsuccessful. The little bugger had gone back into the hole from whence he came.

I stayed the night at a friends house, out of sheer horror, and haunted by the memory of a pet gerbil crawling on top of me as I slept when I was a mere 8 years old.

The next day I acquired two mouse traps which I cleverly concealed behind my dishwasher and bathroom door. The original sighting spot.

A week went by and no dice. Err, I mean mice.

But then yesterday, Steve mentioned that he thought he had noticed the one behind the dishwasher being unset. But not noticing that there was a mouse in it. So this morning I went to get it and reset the thing and guess what awaited me... oh that's right. Little luther (i think that name is appropriate) was sandwiched in that mousetrap.

I'm not one for animal cruelty, but mice should know, they must not coexist with humans. There are consequences for doing so.

Luther has been disposed of... but not before I experienced some bodily reactions I was quite sure I was tougher than. Like, the thought of taking the mouse out of the trap before disposing, made my ears burn. Picking the trap up to put it in a garbage bag made my stomach flop right over. And when it's little body moved as its weight shifted on its trip to the garbage bag, I screamed so loud and dropped it back to the floor.

Yes, I am a girl. I am a screamer, and I get faint at the thought of rodents running wild in my house. Never thought I would have to admit that... but tell me you don't feel a bit weak when you see this: