Heys <3

I’ll be knitting a little fence for on top of Bert’s crib today, and I’ll be weighing down his plants alternatively and treating and installing the gravel (while he wJill be in a separate tank, of course).

Earlier, about two hours ago, I flicked on Bert’s light in its lowest mode. (According to schedule, it should be 8 AM. But it was 07:15 and I was out of bed to use the bathroom, so I thought since I’m out of bed why not just switch on his light right away.)

Now it’s breakfast time for us.

09:03 (AM) CET

So how I feed him now is by…

I’ll be feeding him bloodworms twice a day now. And pellets only when for whatever reason I won’t have bloodworms. I think the syringe feeding method is convenient for when owning multiple fish. & Using a metal spoon may not be the ultimate material, but let’s not forget in the wild they swim in water in which humans (could have) walked and even pissed in, so… Not saying that I’d mistreat his water here, especially because this is stilstaand water, but naturally they’re thus not that vulneable.

The shotglass and the little spoon are all his. My God the block of frozen bloodworms has an awful scent. Like “Omg ewww Bert, you like this shxt?” Haha but I’m glad he likes it. I’d rather use live live foods, but I’m way too “ewww” to be working with live insects. I’ll never use those utensils for myself anymore haha. (The same will go for the utensils I’ll use to empty out the aquarium later.)

So for now his meal has upgraded from McDonalds to frozen spinach with frozen salmon and mashed potatoes. When he’s in the aquarium in my palace, I hope to be serving him gourmet shxt.

I took the cup away and now he’s back to normal. Haha I’m terrified he’s going to jump out the aquarium. I’m going to empty out my desk/dinner table (multifunctionality haha…) to get started on the fence.

10:02 (AM) CET

For inspiration, I used this:

Given that I can’t get the iron perfectly straight, I’m using estimates. The cut out bars on the image are for the outline, which is about 2 cm beyond the aquarium size on each side.

It would be far easier making this using a soldeerbout, but I consider it a waste of money buying that given that I’ll never use it for anything else (though I can also use the iron to make art now yay) and I’m on a budget. I paid about €20 for the scissors and the iron. But I now see I bought the scissors – which I bought in the first place because they’re missing from my toolbox – for no reason because the powerfix tool I’ll be using to fold the corners can also be used to cut iron. Anyway, I’ll get started and show you the progress. The almonds are there for a snack haha.

10:35 (AM) CET

I folded the ends of all bars for the outline around the tip of my powerfix tool.

It’s not perfect, but I think that has its charm. When placing this above the aquarium, it’s important that it is longer and broader than the aquarium itself. The current outline passes that check.

11:02 (AM) CET

They’re longer because the zigzagging will make its overall top-down length shorter and it has to fit the outline. It’s important that the bars are an even number and that the holes in the fence will be smaller than Bert because this is made to make sure that he can’t jump out of his aquarium.

Now, in contrast to the Crazy Russian Hacker video, given that I’m using iron and not rope, assembling the knit work to the outline will be the last step instead of the first. Because otherwise I’d be moving around the outline all the time and that’s just oncomfortable working.

11:38 (AM) CET

Meanwhile I’m keeping a very close eye on Bert, in case I’ll need to rescue him after a suicide attempt.

12:27 (PM) CET

14:14 (02:13 PM) CET

Bert has had dinner. An hour past his dinner time. When I had to add an unexpected other bundle of 6, and I was already tired, I decided to take a nap – this was around 6 – 7 PM. I had set an alarm for 9 PM, but decided to rest my eyes “just a few seconds” longer and then woke up an hour later. Something I also do, by the way, is drop his food at different spots, so that he doesn’t learn “food comes here”.

As for my fence weaving process…

There will be a ” + ” going through every lozenge, and I’m the type of person who can do anything but prefers outsourcing things to trustworthy individuals. With enthusiasm I started off, but when it started to become a routine I was immediately like: “Okay I’m bored.” I hope to have created this in such a way now that I’ll need just one additional bundle of 6 (which I still need to cut). (Like that is why the lozenges from the beginning are (a lot) smaller than the lozenges in the end.) I think Bert’s home makeover will take another day or two.

When the Sun was going down and I wanted to flick on the light in the living room, I realized that I forgot about Bert’s light routine today. So to not mess up his rhythm, I chose to not turn on the living room light. (I’m used to that anyway. :p)

From my – for playing the piano – long fingernails, it was already visible that I haven’t touched the piano in quite some days. Now, given that I shouldn’t flick on the light and I don’t want to go back to sleep just yet, I have some time to play the piano. I won’t be practicing anything new – so Nocturne still won’t be more than, like, the first two lines. It’s more to make sure that my progress won’t be lost.

I’ll be playing Bert a lil night time lullaby…

And maybe I’ll do some cardio. Anyway good night x

23:30 (11:30 PM) CET