Strawberry Yogurt Soup

Hello!  I've been busy with house stuff and retaining my sanity.  Much of my time has been spent trying to resolve our current health insurance mess.  We were approved to have OHP, but they still had it on record that we had private insurance, which we lost when my husband got laid off, so I've been having to untangle it.  I wont go into more detail as it is confusing and borning.  I think I'm finally near the end of it!  I'm still fixing doctor appointments though.  My doctor that I just got doesn't take my new insurance so I'm having to switch again, as well as other family appointments.

Good news!  My husband started a new job last week!  It's through a temp agency, but both the agency and the workplace have made my husband feel appreciated and productive.  He's also on day shift!  Hallaluja!  He gets up at 5 a.m. now, instead of 10 a.m.  I'm adjusting my schedule a little bit (I used to get up at 6:30) so I'll be getting up with him.  It's *so nice* to be able to cuddle with him instead of sleeping alone.

I've been doing art on the computer these last few weeks.  I've had several graphic design orders - a few repeat customers came back.  I love hand dyers!  They make such lovely yarn and they like to dress them up with pre-printed labels, which I am happy to make for them.  :D  It's so satisfying to work with other artists! :)

Ooh, I don't think I told you all that we got a fish!  Anna's been wanting fish for quite some time but I didn't have any time or money to invest into an aquarium.  I told her it would have to wait until after Pandora, our ferret, was gone.  She passed a few months ago now and my daughter was having a hard time with it, so I was thinking it would be a really good idea to try to get fish sooner rather than later.  So I started looking at fish books with her and we decided on a betta and a mystery snail.

Then a friend had a betta they were thinking about getting rid of; apparently he killed any tank mates and she didn't like that.  I told her that was funny as we were thinking about getting a betta and a snail.  So we talked about it a bit more and they brought over the whole 5.5 gallon tank a couple days later!  Anna was thrilled!  While I started working on getting everything set back up Anna decided to name him "Soup."  😂  The previous owner told me she'd named him "Strawberry Yogurt" because of his red/white coloring.  So his full name is "Strawberry Yogurt Soup."  Hehe.

I've been working on getting him happy as there were a few things making him upset.  He didn't like the stronger current of the filter so I changed it.  Then he got sick (probably from stress from the move) and there were a lot of nitrates in the water.  I've been doing daily water changes to fix that.  He seems much happier and relaxed than he was when we first got him.  He's settling in nicely.

Note: His fins have healed more since this picture was taken.  I'll post more later. :)