Why do all the pretty themes have to have major flaws? Found a new possible theme called “Kaleidescope.” The post backgrounds are different colors, based on the date, and they get darker with age. I loved the concept! However, there seem to be issues with how the theme is viewed in IE… at least on my site there is. I also cannot adjust the CPL measure to make the post text easier to read. 🙁

I left the theme’s author a note. Hopefully they will take care of those things (along with any other bugs that may have been found). While it is a rather plain theme, I feel it’s kind of the writer’s version of the photoblogger’s “Monotone.”

While juggling the sites I managed to get a few new recipes posted to my online recipe file.

Almost Orange Julius

Corned Beef in Beer

Caribbean Kebobs

“Reduced Fat” Ground Beef

I also changed the URL from babsrecipes.babspace.com to recipes.babspace.com, as the former seemed rather redundant. 🙂

Enjoy!

I’ve added “Share This” to to my blog, so feel free to share the love as soon as you think I’ve written something good. 🙂

Theme is back to WhitePlus. While I’m not fond of the way the two sidebars are cramped, OmNomMonster was really starting to piss me off. Until I can find something more suitable this is it. I almost had the perfect theme: a notebook with post-its for the sidebar. Unfortunately it wasn’t widget compatible and there weren’t enough post-its to accommodate all the things I have in my sidebar. It was beautiful, though.

While I’m waiting for the ultimate theme to be designed I’ve been busy working on the other sites. Maxwell Pink’s theme will be seeing an update soon, between Roam2Rome’s update of her coffee desk theme and the replacement of the coffee cup with a can of Diet Mountain Dew.

I have created two new categories. One will be where you can find my weight loss progress. The other will speak of my aquarium, which I’m currently overhauling. As I can’t crosspost to WordPress, and it’s a pain to copy and paste then email the posts, I’ve been trying to decide which topics I’ll discuss here. I guess I’ll figure it out sooner or later. In the meantime I’ve reversed the two sidebars. 🙂

I’m beginning the first stage of transforming my goldfish tank to one for tropical fish (and no, I’m not getting GloFish!). Who would’ve thought it’d be so expensive?

I knew I wanted to replace the two Tetra Whisper Power filters as they were starting to get noisy, not to mention I was getting tired of fishing the impellers out of the bases every time they slipped out of their holders and froze the filters. I ordered an Emperor Bio Wheel 400 last week. It arrived yesterday, but the boneheads at Marineland (the manufacturer) didn’t pack it correctly. They placed the intake tubing on top of the bio wheels, then put the filter lid on top. It should’ve been the other way around, to protect the bio wheels. One of which was damaged due to the improper packaging. Thankfully Drs. Foster and Smith are very nice. Instead of making me pack the whole shebang back up and shipping it to them for a replacement, they shipped me a replacement bio-wheel. I should receive it this week.

While waiting, I was looking into substrates. I already have 3 inches of black gravel in the tank, but for some reason my plants never seem to grow. I read about this stuff called laterlite which is supposed to be really good for plant growth. I can just mix it in with my current gravel. Alas, no one carries it locally, and it’s not really worth the $9.99 shipping cost for a small box of the stuff. I picked up some Flourish Tabs, instead. We’ll see if there’s an improvment. I also got two good-sized pieces of Mopani Drift Wood. They are currently soaking in one of a wash buckets. I might order another piece when I order this. I still have to decide whether I want to get the one with the light, or without. If I get it with the light it will most definitely be blue, as all the tank lights I’ve seen that have “lunar lighting” have blue LEDs.

After I get the air pump, it’s a heater, rocks, and plants. I’ll let the setup run for about a week before adding fish to see if the nitrate levels drop with the addition of the plants. If not, one of the wonderful things about the Emperor filter is that it comes with baskets to put additional media in. They now have tons of media to reduce nitrate levels. Formerly all you could find was stuff to remove ammonia and nitrite. I guess it’s because they are now starting to realize high levels of nitrate can be just as harmful as any amount of the other two.

Anyway. That’s where I am with the tank. I really should take pictures of the whole process.