New Home and New Friends

Who has two thumbs and disappeared from WordPress for two months? That’s me! I know, I know, I didn’t follow that schedule I laid out back in April to manage my blog posts/other professional work. I won’t fling excuses at you, but I will fling the good news that contributed to my inactivity – I moved!

We started casually searching for a new place to live last year, but had gotten nowhere. But we wanted to take the next step and find our own place, for various personal reasons. A new opportunity presented itself to us in May, and we moved into our new apartment in June. Which meant I spent most of my free time in May packing up our stuff and cleaning up. You do not want to know how many boxes of books I had on my bookshelf alone.

I’m finally starting to feel settled in here. We’ve unpacked everything, arranged it, and have started turning the place into our own. Our zombie head cookie jar can finally have it’s own spot on the kitchen counter! There’s no cookies in it yet, so I should get on top of that. It’s also nice to have our own space – we don’t have to share a kitchen and bathroom with anyone else. And now that we have a living room, I find myself spending more time there than I imagined.

Aside from that, I have room for new friends! We never got more rats after Kahlan and Cara passed away; losing them was so hard on us. And if we were moving, we couldn’t be sure if we could bring pets or not. I will always have a place in my heart for rats, but they will stay in my heart for now. While larger pets are currently out the question for us, we can have a fish. So two weeks ago, I picked out Lapis!

This is Lapis, a male veiltail betta fish in his plant kingdom.

I got the tank and live plants from a friend (family? at this point), who has his own massive planted tank. He also gave me the substrate on the bottom, which is good for keeping plants. Lapis also has a heater and mini filter, because he deserves it. Betta fish might be able to live without it for a little while, but they are tropical fish. And tropical fish need warm (and clean) water.

 Update: the moss ball’s name is Shrimpy!

This guy is a marimo moss ball, another water critter that we sell at my job. It is actually more like a ball of algae; it’s alive, but you don’t have to feed it. A lot of aquarium owners put these in their fish tanks to help keep the water clear, but not me! I’m pretty sure Lapis would eat it, and I’m also a giant weirdo. This is my boyfriend’s “pet”, since he felt like the fish was more mine than his. Change its water every couple of weeks, and you’re set!

Sophie is the succulent on the left, and Poppy is the cactus on the right.

When we knew we were moving, I bought myself a cactus as a little gift – it was looking neglected in the back of a store. And it’s okay, it’s only dyed orange – not spray painted, or anything like that. It was the first plant I re-potted on my own. I picked up the succulent on the left after we moved in – it was also neglected on a shelf with dying plants. At that point I also really wanted a succulent, but it was an add-on!

This is Spike, a Cordyline Red Spike. Not as original, I know.

This spiky baby was the real reason for my visit to the store. We had this little wolf planter, and I was looking for an outdoor plant that could fit inside. I also got hung up trying to find a plant that lived year-round. I kept finding cool looking plants that ended up being perennials. Who knew how intricate planting could be?

Now that the hard work is behind us, I want to get back to blogging, writing, and all that good stuff. I hope you’ve all been well!