Day 1 (Feb. 24): Went to PetSmart and after taking a ridiculously long time finally settled on a “male fancy guppy” and three ghost shrimp. We also bought some broken up shell stuff to put at the bottom of the tank and a fake plant. $12.80 total. Came home, put it all together. I donated some rocks I had on hand as decoration. Here’s a picture:

Day 2 (Feb. 25): Named our fish Sharkbait, and the three shrimp Oohaha, Guts, and Skellington (from largest to smallest).
Skellington nomming on a fishfood flake:

Day 3 (Feb. 26): Woke up and checked on the fish. Panicked because the tank was super cloudy. Googled “why is my fishtank cloudy after two days” and panicked even more. Did an emergency 50% water change. Water looked better and Sharkbait seemed more energetic. Calmed down a little, wrote a limerick about what I learned (TILimerick).

Day 4 (Feb. 27): Everything seems normal and we are one day away from our goal of all our pets living for five days (CHALLENGE ACCEPTED).

When we got them the insides of the shrimp were light brown (Skellington), medium brown (Guts), and black (Oohaha). After we fed them, they became brownish-orange, I assumed because the food was orange. But now Oohaha has something blue on the top…. Should I be worried?

So The Shadow Rising is the fourth book in the “Wheel of Time” series. I’m starting to slow down in my pace with these books, but the story is picking up again. Book three felt a bit fluffy as far as the plot went, but this book follows Rand more closely.

I really appreciate the way Robert Jordan entices you to want to know more. In book three, I was particularly tied up in Perrin. This book I was more interested in Egwene and the girls, but by the end I was back on track following Rand.

A lot is revealed in this book. An explanation for why the Tinkers and the Aiel avoid each other, more detail about dreamers and their talents. And Moraine says explicitly what she only hinted at in book three. Hm, also I keep wondering when (if?) Moraine will die because I feel like it’s been set up so that she must.

Oh, and King Arthur references! The “Sword in the Stone” bit tickled my fancy. =P

So when I went to meet my newest baby cousin, my sister told me I should bring an Angel’s Food Cake. I never particularly liked Angel’s Food Cake. My family normally eats it plain, but on TV you usually see it eaten with something. I wasn’t really up for making the cake myself, and I thought just showing up with a store-bought Angel’s Food Cake in a plastic container wasn’t particularly classy. So I decided to make a compote.

- 2 pkg (12 oz) raspberries
- 1 pkg (6 oz) blueberries
- 1 pkg (6 oz) blackberries
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- sugar to taste (~ 1/2 c)

(This amount of berries makes over 3 cups of compote. We found that you only need ~1 cup of compote to satisfy most people eating a medium sized Angel’s Food Cake.)

Rinse the berries and mix them together. Put about 2/3 of your berries into a medium saucepan. Turn the heat on low to medium. Add lemon juice and ~1/4 c sugar. (The berries will release liquid, so you don’t need to add water.) Mix occasionally until berries soften (2-5 minutes). Taste to test sweetness level, add more sugar if needed.

When I did this, the raspberries basically melted while the blueberries were still firm. I actually literally crushed most of the blueberries with a wooden spoon against the side of the pan because I wanted it more sauce-y.

Add the rest of your berries and mix 1-2 minutes (just to slightly warm/soften). Remove from heat and spoon/pour into glass jar/container. Serve warm or chilled.

Apparently you can keep this in your fridge for up to 2 weeks, but it is NOT like jam/jelly (ie. you cannot keep it for very long). You can also freeze it, but with this amount of berries I pretty much finished it in a few days. Try white bread + compote. Yum. =9

My compote turned out pretty liquid. I read that you can add a cornstarch+water slurry to thicken it? But I didn’t really think it was worth the effort. The liquid part is a similar consistency to like, raspberry sauce that restaurants use decoratively in desserts? In fact, I kept craving chocolate cake whenever I was eating my bread+compote…

I’m going to have to get that flourless chocolate cake recipe from May…

K: i was actually thinking the other day about chicken eggs and
what is that thing called where ppl believe a fertilized egg is life
M: pro-life?
K: anyway
it’s kind of interesting to think about it
once a chicken egg is fertilized
it pretty much is self sustaining
it is “alive” sort of
it’s outside of the mother’s body and it doesn’t receive any more nutrients or energy
i mean it has to be warm to stay alive but pretty much everything it needs to become a chick is itself
so conceptually it’s like it’s already a chick, it just needs time
but a human embryo, if you take it out of the mom
even if you keep it warm
it’s going to die
wait does it?
the sac or wtv has nutrients but i don’t think enough to keep the embryo growing
the mom has to continually input nutrients and energy into it to keep it growing until it’s a baby
so it’s not really self sustaining
does that mean it’s not alive in and of itself
it is only alive in the sense that it’s part of the mom and the mom is alive
M: yeah, it needs the mom’s nutrients
through her blood
K: anyway that’s something i had never thought about before
M: me neither
K: a baby is like, an extra organ the mom has
M: yeah
K: but a fertilized chicken egg is like
a chick waiting to hatch
M: an extra organ that kicks her other organs
K: lol
like a cancer
a baby is like a cancer
it occasionally can kill the mom too
M: it does keep growing uncontrollably
K: it’s cells dividing out of control
yup
crazy
anyway
that’s a day in the life of my brain