Exploding Fish

I've been having a little trouble with my aquarium lately. My guppies died off a while ago, so about 2 weeks ago I decided to get some more fish. I picked up three tiny neon (blue and red) tetras, and 2 gold mollies, which look alot like my red fish. Within 2 days all of the tetras disappeared, and I assume that someone ate them. Then a couple of days after that I came home from church to find that one of my new mollies was dead. I fed them just before church, and it looked fine. When I got home it looked like it's head had exploded. There was a gaping hole in the head and the eyes were gone. A few days later the same thing happened to my other molly. I took it's frozen carcass back to the pet store to see if I could get any answers. They seemed stumped, as the fish didn't show any sign of disease, and the other fish in my tank are supposedly peaceful. Their only suggestion was that the fish had died for no apparent reason, and then once they were dead one or more of my supposedly peaceful fish sucked out the eyes and brain. I decided against getting any more mollies, so Ava helped me pick out a blue gourami, and so far it seems to be doing well.

Post Thanksgiving Hike

After Mom left for the airport this afternoon I decided to go on a hike to help counteract all of the feasting and grazing that went on this weekend.

I was planning to go to Farmington Canyon, but I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going and before I knew it I was on Mountain Road headed to Baer Canyon.

Of course at this time of year the major colors are shades of grey and brown, but they are pretty in their own way.

Once you get about a mile up the canyon there are evergreens on the south slope.

This shot was taken just after mile marker three. You should be able to see Francis Peak and the radar station right there, but the clouds were low enough to cover it. My spirit was willing to go on, but my feet were done at this point, so I turned around and headed home.

Thanksgiving Fun

So here are my random, candid photos from Thanksgiving at the Murray's.

This is Steph trying to eat a chip in a seductive manner. I don't think she looks that seductive.
This was supposed to be a photo of Steph slapping Jef away from the chips. They were not cooperating with me.
Matt, Dan and Joann "conversating". Mom was telling us that someone at her work uses the term "conversating" quite often, so Matt looked up the definition on urbandictionary.com. The definition is:

conversate

A word used by backwards, ignorant, illiterate inner city trash who mean to say 'converse'.
"Yo, I just needs to conversate witcha!"

The present and future Thompson family.

Mom and Joyce "conversating".

Jef and Grandpa "conversating".

Grandma and Dick enjoying their feast.

Jo grooming Colton's hair.

I took a picture of Brent and Cindy but it was too dark. Here you can see Cindy and a portion of Brent's head between Jeremy and Karen.

Henry, Matt, and Jef responding to something that was apparently humorous to Henry and Matt, but not to Jef.

The Murray's are the fun grandparents who have purchased a small bounce house for their grandchildren. Mom and I were tempted, but it didn't look quite as heavy-duty as the stuff at Classic Skating.

Afterwards some people congregated at Jo's house for drinks and snacks.

This is a random picture of my dog in a sweater because Ava was thrilled about it.

Nothing Much

I don't really have anything to write about, but since I haven't really had anything to write about for a while now I figured I might as well just check in.

I just finished making roll dough for my ward Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I am hoping that they will rise. Last time I made rolls for myself they didn't rise, so I bought new yeast and I am keeping my fingers crossed. I didn't go to the dinner last year, but the year before they ran out of food and apparently it is such a famous dinner that people who have no connection to the ward have been showing up in droves for the last few years, so this year there will be a bouncer (counsellor in the bishopric) standing at the one unlocked door to let people in. We will see how it goes.

My old Christmas lights were looking kind of sad and the colored coating on the glass was peeling off, so I decided to invest in some new outdoor lights. I decided to go with the Energy Star lights which advertise that they use 98% less energy than traditional lights. I believe the claim because they are certainly not very bright. However, they are supposed to last for up to 20 years, and you can connect up to 87 sets of lights to one outlet, so it's not all bad. If I could afford it I would connect 87 sets of lights to my outlet and light up the giant pine tree in my front yard just like the people who live next to the Farmington cemetary. I tried to take a picture of my lights but since they are not very bright and my camera is not fancy enough to take pictures in the dark it didn't turn out very well.

Cynthia and Alyssa stopped by my house yesterday while I was putting up my Christmas lights. That was a nice surprise.

I checked out the link on Jef's blog where you can go to make snowflakes on the computer and I am now completely obsessed. I may not be able to blog for a while because I will be too busy making snowflakes.

Handiness at Work

Well, aside from my dishwasher disaster last night I have not been doing any home improvement projects lately, so I decided to post some work improvement projects.

We are getting more infants at work, but we also have a lot of 2 and 3 year olds whose parents don't seem to have any interest in potty training their children, so I needed some more diaper storage space. I brought my jigsaw and my drill to work yesterday and the kids were absolutely thrilled. This first shelf was originally twice as long, so I had to cut it in half in order to get it to fit in this space. The kids were most thrilled with this because I let them each have a screwdriver to mess around with while I did the actual work of putting the side piece on. It's not my fault that the shelf was hung crookedly, the custodians put it up.

This is the space underneath the changing table itself. It was just one open space and we were using cardboard boxes to keep things separated. I used some scrap wood in my garage to craft these nifty little dividers. They turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

Good Luck, Steph!

First of all, I have to say good luck to Stephanie tomorrow as she starts her new job. It took a lot of guts to put up with an abusive boss for 5 months, and it took even more guts for her to stand up for herself and walk out on him. I know that she has been anxious, fearful, and depressed for the last few weeks as she struggled first with reduced hours and then without a job entirely, but hopefully her new job will be a much better situation for her. I am keeping my fingers crossed that her new boss does not turn out to be a raving lunatic.

Secondly, I am reporting a brush with disaster. I was just talking with one of the families in my day care this morning about the aftermath of a broken pipe under their sink. They had more than $11,000 worth of damage to their home, and it doesn't look like their insurance is going to cover more than $6,000. I had turned on my dishwasher this evening and I was sitting in my living room reading a book when suddenly the sound of my dishwasher changed and I heard water pouring out all over my kitchen floor. I ran in and turned off the water and mopped up the mess and I discovered that the hose that connects the water to my dishwasher had come loose. Luckily I was in the house when it happened, and it was just a disconnected hose rather than a broken pipe, and I was able to fix it by myself in a matter of minutes. Needless to say I will not be leaveing my dishwasher unattended any time soon.


Why on earth do I keep so much crap under my sink, and how did it ever all fit under there?

Fun In The Yard

While Nate and Liv have been raking leaves I have been trying to clean up my park strip flower bed. Some of the plants are still looking good, so I only filled up two big garbage bags this week. After I cleaned up the bed as much as I could I decided to plant the bulbs that grandma gave me a few weeks ago. As I was walking past my gas meter on my way to the garage I noticed an odor that smelled like when you turn the gas on to a stove burner but don't light the pilot light. I called Questar and about 30 minutes later I had a technician replacing my gas meter while I planted the bulbs. This is the third time that I have smelled a gas leak since I have moved into my home. Luckily I seem to have a pretty good nose for it, and now I have a nice shiny new gas meter.