Our weekend project.

Got a 38 gallon fish tank from a friend who didn't want it because it was really dirty and had tons of hard water stains.  Of course, I took it without hesitation.  My husband put in some elbow grease and did a spectacular job cleaning it up.  Took him about an hour.  It has a few scratch marks, but for the most part, it looks good.  The main reason I wanted it was because I have an 8 gallon round tank with one goldfish that really got too big for it.  I've really felt bad and hated seeing him swin in circles all day. Well, after cleaning it and testing for leaks, we put him in, and he is in fishy heaven.

We spend the day looking for tank covers and found them to be really quite expensive.  So we headed over to good ol' Menards.  "Save big money at Menards"....yes we did.  The price of most of the covers that we found, without a light, were around $50, plus add another $40 or so for the light.  Well, we decided to make the cover out of window screen.  We purchased an aluminum screen fabric and the metal base, and cut it to size.  Less than $10 there.  Then we went over to the light fixtures and got some bulb sockets which we connected to....what else....a plastic gutter splash guide.  I personally think this was genius.  My husband is a master at creating gadgets.  He's my MacGyver.  This only cost us about $8.  After that we went over to the gravel and found some river pebbles.   Purchasing those at a pet store would have been about $20+...at Menards, we bought the bag of river pebbles for $2.89 for a bag that covers 3 square feet.  We had more than enough for the tank and I have plenty for my plants.  Woohoo.  It sure does pay to shop around.  Now that left me with money to buy fishy companions for my lonely fish.  I might even be able to buy my birdy a friend too. Lol.

Putting the sreen together.

Here's Dad doing his thing. 

Here's our gutter light fixture.  It works great!

I'm loving my tank.  Water therapy.  It is so relaxing to watch the fish swim around and listen to the sound of the water. <3

Tada!! Finished product.

Baby's Bunny

I found an adorable bunny on pintrest.com, and tried my hand at making it for Luna. Here is the link for it, for anyone interested in making it. (http://craftdesignerforhire.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/free-crochet-rabbit-project-from-craft.html) 
It's easy, but time consuming, if you use the colorful stripping effect.  It can easily be made in solid colors if preferred.  I think that's what I'll do next time.

These are the limbs.

It's the head.

Before it's assembled.

Finished product. TaDaaa!!!

Our week's adventure

It's been a beautiful week and I have tried my best to take advantage of the weather before I have to go back to work next week.  Went to the lake with the hubby and enjoyed a wonderful walk by the lake and through the bird sanctuary. Then we went over to Montrose Harbor, which is my favorite spot to sit and dunk my feet into the water.  I also enjoy watching the boats go by.  One day I will be passing through there in my kayak. For now I love just kayaking in lakes and lagoons.  It's just cooler because there is more shade and lots of nature; surrounded by trees and birds is better than open sun and lots of big speeding boats.

Felt so nice and cool.  I wanted to jump right in.

                             

As we were walking by the boat dock, I spotted a light blue and white parakeet.  Tony tried to grab it, but I really felt bad and decided that we should leave it, since it seemed so happy flying free.  I thought about taking it home and putting it in a cage, and it made me sad.  So we walked away, even though I wanted it so that it can keep my other parakeet company since it is alone, now that I just lost one of them. :-(  Still, I felt it needed to be free. It was a very nice area, with many other birds, plenty of plants and food, and lots of trees for shelter.  Plus, it's summer and warm out, so it should be OK, at least until winter.  I know, I'm silly in that way. :-/

This mother duck warned me when I first got there and then slowly swam right by me with all of her little ducklings.  They were adorable. <3

To end the day, we went to George's in Bucktown and had a nice dinner. Nothing like a juicy greek grilled chicken sandwich, and an italian beef for the hubby. GOOD FOOD.

George's in Bucktown

On Tuesday we went for a great bike ride on the North Branch Bike Trial.  It was wonderful biking weather, especially out there, when you are riding in the cool shadows of the spectacular trees. We rode all the way from Devon to the Chicago Botanic Gardens.  Very exhilarating.  Had the opportunity to see deer and many birds and we even saw a skunk. :-)  It was great.  We stopped off at Mcdonalds on the way home and had a little meal.  I had chicken nuggets which I haven't had in ages.  They were really good.  Not too filling, just enough to fill me up.

Skokie Lagoons

The hubby getting us some water for the continuation of the ride. Have to keep hydrated! Somehow in the process I managed to get splashed as well.  :-/

The sun was going down and it was just beautiful.

Always stop and smell the flowers....

My Luna is getting bigger, :-)

Look at how big my Luna is getting.  Everyday she becomes more and more precious.  She is such a delight to be around.  She makes me smile all the time. 

I made a her a little sun hat that I saw online.  Basically you can find any cute sun hat pattern and just put on your own decorations like flowers, buttons or ribbons.  One of the things I love to do is to look through pintrest.com and mix and match different patterns and ideas that I see. There are so many talented creators out there. It's amazing all the beautiful patterns there are, and some of them are so simple to imitate. Google.com something you are interested in and you can probably find a free pattern out there for it. I think crocheting and knitting has come a long way since I learned back when I was 8.  I remember making doilies and doll covers for the extra toilet paper roll. 

     

Happy crocheting everyone. :-)