I’ve been watching my 3-year-old nephew everyday for the past week. I had originally volunteered to watch him for 3 months, but I asked Carla yesterday to put him in daycare as soon as she can. He takes up all my time and I get nothing accomplished. And I’m dead tired by the end of the day. It’s like having a job, complete with looking forward to the weekend and dreading Monday.

I know that I will have my own baby soon and that will be 24/7 instead of 8.5 hours/day. But that is a responsibility that I have accepted as a mother. As an aunt, watching Logan everyday is just too much. The responsibilities of my life have been put on hold to take care of a responsibility in Carla’s life. Each day passes with none of my business completed… or even started for that matter. I play catch-up on the weekend.

I hope he goes to daycare soon. I hope Carla takes care of this soon.

On a “cool geek factor” note, though, the Macquarium is almost done. We are waiting for the last plant and a pair of A. australe killifish, both of which I have to order over the internet. In the meantime, we have set it up with everything that we have so far. Really, only those two things are missing… well three. I want to treat some water with peat and add that.

I should probably wait until it’s complete to post the pictures, but I’m just so excited. Also, the pictures don’t do it justice. It’s very pretty and very cool.

We couldn’t fill the water all the way to the top of the tank because the bubbles from the filter were causing the water to leak over the top. But we didn’t want there to be a visible gap between the top of the water and the top of the tank, so we printed out an image of the System 3 menu bar and taped it up so the gap was hidden behind it. I think it’s pretty cool.

Some advice if you are considering making a Macquarium:

1. It’s a bitch of a project but well worth it.
2. You are limited to goldfish because your water will be cold unless you buy a 6″ mini-heater for tropical fish.
3. If you do use a mini-heater and get tropical fish, you are limited to two choices because all other fish will languish and die in such a small volume of water. I know what you’re thinking, “I’ll get tetra. They are tiny. They’ll be okay in such a tiny tank.” Nope. They may be tiny, but they still need room to swim. Your choices are either a betta or killies. These fish can quite happily live in two gallons of water.
4. If you do choose killifish, they jump and you will have to fashion a device to cover the hole in the top of the Mac. Matt has plans for a wire frame covered in panty hose. 🙂
5. Choose easy, low-light plants. I am using java fern, anubius nana, and Italian vallisneria.

This is what I have learned so far. I’m sure I will learn more as time goes on. And maybe I will learn that I got some of these rules wrong. 🙂 I did just set it up.

It’s been a fun project… well, fun once I gutted the Mac. Gutting the Mac was not fun. Matt wants to find some old Mac SE floppy drives and cut them down and install them so they look like working floppies. That would be cool, but I’m not so sure we are going to be able to find old Mac SE floppy drives.