[with love Heidi]

If anyone wants to know, I use the America Girl dolls patterns and they fit just fine on the Australia Girl dolls I sew for. I seem to remember someone else having an Australian Girl doll.

[Tamara]

That was me (jumping up and down with my hand in the air)! I find that it depends on where you get the patterns as the pattern books I have are weird and the e patterns from Liberty Jane patterns, even though they are vey cute, some don’t fit at all! I either have to enlarge or take in depending on where they are. I have used a pattern called Liberty girl from an old issue of AS&E that fit perfectly.

Had a bit of a sad day here today. We had our first fish fatality! Our beautiful little sparky celestial “Dennis” got “grabbed” by the filter – not Nemo style but much worse! Poor N was devastated! So we got him a more hardy (hopefully) fish and told him sometimes you just get a run of bad luck with fish and sometimes they look as though they’ll outlive you! It is just the way it is! So he prayed that God would look after him in heaven! On the good side we now have a blue orana which is another type of goldfish and is so far getting along famously with the comets. His name? Dennis the second!

[Jane]

I have never seen a fish sucked into the filter. How sad and devastating for a kiddo. 🙁

On a happier note, we are having a SNOW DAY! The kiddos are snuggled in their PJ’s on the couch watching cartoons. Pancakes for breakfast (I never have time to make a warm breakfast on a weekday, only weekends), then outside for sledding and snowball fights, hot cocoa, more cartoons! It’s going to be a great day! 🙂

Jane

[Tamara]

Snow days for us only exist in the movies! Sounds like bliss!

The fish got stuck next to the filter and the force was so strong it couldn’t get away. I saw another one at he pet shop do the same thing, although we managed to save it even if it was not a happy fishy afterwards. Apparently it happens often but because the celestial has eyes on top of its head instead of t the side, it makes it harder to avoid. It was our pet for a fortnight!

[Jane]

I had to Google celestial fish. What a cool looking fish, I don’t think I have ever seen one before. My husband likes the different varieties of chichlids and barbs. I may have to convince him that we need a celestial fish in our tank now too. I’m not too versed on fish tanks and filters, that’s hubby’s area of expertise. I will cross my fingers that Dennis v. 2.0 lives a longer, happier life.

Jane

[Lightning McStitch]

How sad for you all, and what an action movie, horror way for the fish to die. Mine just get picked out of the pond every year by herons if I forget to net the pond in spring.

on a happier fish note, I saw little baby goldfish in the pond the other day. I’ve never had fish breed before so the arrival of babies is very exciting.

[Tamara]

Whoa! You have babies??? That is so fantastic! My kids wanted to know if their fish had the right names for their gender and I said call them anything – the goldfish I had as a kid went out weekly with the water change we had such bad luck so at the time I didn’t hold out much hope for this lot! But babies wow! What a novelty. You will absolutely have to have the net on all year round now!

Jesims we saw some celestials with bubbles at the sides of their heads yesterday but we were warned that if we have ornaments they can actually burst their bubbles and die that way so decided not to get one.

Happy Australia Day to all us Aussies (and honorary Aussies) .May you throw thongs furtherest and not give your hubby a backache when carrying you up the beach hehe! Oh and remember to not burn the chops! Getting in early!

[Tamara]

Never rains but it pours with our summer this year. Fires down south and somewhere in Queensland got 600mm I’m something ridiculous like a 24 hour block of time. That is one and a half times our annual rainfall! Meanwhile in the west it is dusty and dry as a bone. I do feel for them though as it would possibly be a scary reminder of the floods not long ago. Hope you are ok up there rastis!

[KarenK]

We had a snow day here as well, or rather an “ice day”– freezing rain on top of snow. Sadly, not the kind of snow day that you want to play outside in. I managed to get most of a Nature Walk Cape sewn for my daughter. Not bad considering I had my four kids and our neighbor girl here for most of the day.

[rastis]

my mum has one of those fish justsewit and it is the fattest thing i’ve ever seen… my sister (who’s a vet) reckons it’s been eating gravel off the bottom of the tank… it’s very old though! my mum also has guppies and those things are brutal… if you don’t move an expectant mother away from the other fish they will sit behind her while she is giving birth and eat the babies as soon as they come out… very upsetting to watch… when we got them as kids we had no idea they did that and it kinda scarred me seeing them be cannibals 🙁

[rastis]

we’ve only had a little bit of rain here… they’ve had more near the coast… they are predicting it to come but we’ll see… it may stop just north of us? who knows… we need proper rainfall though, our river is extremely low and the dam is almost dry… we’re on rainwater and our tanks are looking sad (not to mention all my plants that are dying!) fortunately we are high up in our new house so if it floods we should be fine!

[with love Heidi]

Tamara, I’m a bit of a cheap skate and only use free tutorial patterns, but I was surprised at how many there were. I also tend to try them on my Cabbage Patch Kid, which is significantly wider, before I give them to my friends kids. So far I don’t think I’ve had any hassels, both the Oliver and S ones work well though (popover and teaparty).

[lattemama]

We had -17C this morning and I am ready to emigrate to warmer climes any time. I keep chanting “this too shall pass” but it’s not really working. Not even a booked Greece-trip this summer is cheering me up – it’s too bloody long until then (20 weeks).

We bought two fantails three years ago (named Ollie and Tess from that children’s show Dive Ollie, Dive.) and they suddenly bred as well. We had lots and lots of little babies but in the end only one survived. (Two really, but one of the littles probably got in the way of one of the big ones during feeding and got it’s back broken – there was blood. We had a sad.)

No snow days here – we’re supposed to brave the cold no matter what. Viking blood and all that jazz. My big girl is going ice skating with school today – thankfully indoors – but with -17C I’m pretty sure the lake down by the bog where we live is frozen solid.

[Tamara]

So glad you are not having to be a fish yourself rastis. I’ve heard some of the sunshine state is in strife with flooding. Hopefully you get some rain to top the tank up. Do you have just the one? I grew up on rain water and remember my dad having to “lower the bung” to “get the dregs out” our bore water was foul and only had the recommended size tank. Here we have many more that feed the house because we collect the water from all the sheds too. That way we make sure we can get through a hot dry summer without doing drastic water restrictions – the turn on turn off showers and such! I suggested it and the in laws laughed at me!

When we were choosing Stanley and Dennis (the first) we thought about guppies but they are tail nippers and any fan tail fish such as a comet (of which we have three) will be slowly nibbled from the tail up – gruesome! The kids just love the tropical fish but I feel they are for the more experienced. When I was a kid a family friend of ours used to go and catch yabbies/ jilgies at the nearby creek. The jolly things grew like crazy. Don’t know how but he just had a knack!

Just keeping up with stabilising nitrate levels is enough for us to contend with! And the poor plant! It looks like it has had a trip through the grinder or something!

Those guppies sound like pet mice – too noisy they eat their young! That is one animal I will NEVER have as a pet!

[lattemama]

Oh, our fantails ate the plant all the time until we found one they don’t like.

Now they just dig this one up. Probably because they don’t like where we put it. Maybe there’s some weird feng shui for fish we’re not let in on.

When ever my husband cleans the tank they get all wild and start to reposition all the stones on the bottom. I can just imagine them muttering and grumbling about their stupid humans messing their living room up 😉