August 22 2019

Review: Aqueon Aquarium Water Changer

Water Changer

We did one of our least favorite tasks this past weekend and I realized that it wasn’t nearly as dreaded as it used to be. The task has been made immensely easier because of Hubby shopping on Amazon. He ordered this thing and I wasn’t sure it would work, but I stand corrected. We have used the Aqueon Aquarium Water Changer with the addition of the ATP Vinyl-Flex PVC Food Grade Plastic Tubing, Clear, 1/2″ ID x 5/8″ OD, 100 feet Length  hose to siphon the water out of our aquariums and then fill them back up. This entire set up was less expensive than a nice dinner out and has saved us so much trouble and pain.

The water routine changes are so much easier since we started using it. We simply get it off the hook in the basement where we store it when it is not in use and attach it to the faucet in the laundry tub. The the other end of the hose goes up the two flights of stairs into the room with the turtle tank. Hubby hollers down for me to turn it on and I just turn the cold faucet on all the way with the valve open so the water goes through the part that attaches to the faucet and the suction begins. Soon there is dirty turtle water flowing into the sink and straight down the drain. It works so much better than the ones we used in the past where the siphon was a squeezable section and the hose was only about five foot long, so we siphoned the water into a bucket then emptied the buckets into the toilet. These buckets were heavy and awkward and sometimes sloshed water through the house on the way to the bathroom to empty them.

This tool vacuums the gravel off without sucking it up, cleaning it while leaving it safely in the tank. When the right amount of water has been siphoned out of the tank, all you have to do is reverse the valve and the water begins to fill the tank. This is the point where I usually turn the hot water on full blast also so it doesn’t get too cold for the fish or turtle. when the tank is full, Hubby has me turn it back to the siphon setting so he can safely bring the hose back down to the basement, wind it back up and hang it on the hook.

According to the manufacturers, “While vacuuming gravel, the key to thorough cleaning is water flow. Just the right amount of water flow will meticulously agitate the gravel to remove loose dirt while reducing the amount of water that dispenses into the sink. The easy-grip molded handle on the gravel tube includes a built-in on/off valve for total water flow control at your fingertips. The same valve on the sink attachment can be adjusted to reduce splashing of dirty water in the sink.”

Below are some photos of the wonder tool in action from the basement side. Since Hubby always mans the top and I always man the bottom, I can’t tell you what it looks like from the other end, but Hubby loves it and thinks he has the better end of the deal and I think the bottom is easy too. The last photo shows how we store our hose assembly between uses. Pay no attention to any mess shown in these photos, it is all an optical illusion. Yes, really.

We got the version with the twenty five foot hose because at the time that was the only one available and Hubby thought it would be plenty long enough. I think at the time he was also thinking we could attach it to the kitchen sink or the bathroom sink faucets, but it wouldn’t have been an easy connection to either of those and was much cheaper and easier to just get the one hundred foot food grade hose we bought to switch out for the original hose. We ended up cutting about twenty five feet off so it wasn’t quite so unwieldy, and that still left up plenty to cover the three floors in our house.

If you have pools or aquariums or other things that you fill or empty water in and out of you should really consider getting this handy little tool. It might just save your life. Actual life saving assumes wet slippery floors and steps and slipping and sliding or pulling something from lifting and emptying heavy buckets of water. Results may vary and are not guaranteed but seriously, avoid the strain and mess of lifting heaving buckets of dirty fish or turtle water and get one of these, you will be so glad you did. Please note that the links in this post are affiliate links and if you choose to buys something after clicking on one of them, I might ear a penny or two without any additional cost to you.

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August 1 2019

What I have been watching…

In the past, I have watched almost entirely movies on NetFlix. One of my kids has a subscription and allows me to watch for free. Yes, I am cheap and frugal. I never wanted to watch series shows because I know my limits when it comes to stopping after an episode or two. Recently, I started watching a series because I didn’t want the time commitment of a movie, so a series seemed like an excellent alternative. So, without a doubt, you are wondering what I am watching. I saw a show that peaked my interest because I remembered a similar show from way back. I have been watching Queer Eye. I have to say I have really been enjoying the show. I like how they not only update the victim’s wardrobe, but also fix up the person’s living space or workplace, and teach them how to make a few dishes to liven up their food choices. Often, the person whose life is getting made over has issues in their lives they haven’t dealt with and the Fab 5 take turns counseling the person by using experiences from their own lives. This is cool because in the process they let the viewers get to know them a little better too.

Watching a series has been an exercise in self control. In the past, I would watch episode after episode until I had binge watched the entire series. In some cases we would check the seasons of a particular show out on DVD from the local library and need to watch them all before the 21 day checkout period was over because they were due back and we couldn’t renew them. We couldn’t just stop in the middle of a season. I like watching shows that were once on television and full of commercial breaks, but now take only 45 minutes or less to watch each hour long show with all the commercials removed. I find I can fit an episode in easily without having to stop in the middle because it is bedtime or dinner time.

As I write this post, I am in a co-working space where we meet regularly to write together. On the other side of the glass windows that divide our conference room from the lobby of the next area, is some sort of musical dancing group practicing a huge part of my childhood. I realize I am dating myself now, but you already know I am a member of the over fifty club, but they are practicing various songs from School House Rock! So far, I have heard “A Noun Is A Person, Place Or Thing”, “Conjunction Junction”, and “Elbow Room”. This seems oh so appropriate when we are sitting around a big conference room table typing away at our laptops. Here I am in the middle of writing and wanting so badly to go home and binge watch my complete collection of School house Rock on DVD.

So, what have you found yourself in the middle of lately? What was your favorite School House Rock song? What series or movie do your recommend I watch next on NetFlix?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Middle
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Depth Year, Five Minute Friday, Learning, Review | 2 Comments on What I have been watching…
May 23 2019

Review: Everyday Millionaires

If you are a member of the over-fifty club like I am, you are probably pre-occupied with figuring out how much longer you will need to work for a living before you can reasonably retire and do whatever you want with your life. After reading the book, Retire Inspired (affiliate) by Chris Hogan, I began to think about retirement in a completely different way. Chris says that retirement is not an age, it is a financial number. I love that! I have also listened to all of his podcasts and was looking forward to his most recent release that came out in January, Everyday Millionaires (affiliate) by Chris Hogan. After hearing the commercials for the new book on his podcast  a bunch of times I decided I could spare the $20 and buy the book, especially since it came with so many cool bonus freebies and was less than I would likely have paid if I had waited and bought it from any bookstore, and then I wouldn’t have gotten all the bonus things with it. So I caved and bought the book.

I loaned the hardcover out to my sister so she could read it too and thought perhaps we’d have a book club type discussion about it, but I delayed getting started reading the ebook or listening to the audiobook mostly due to technical issues and not taking the time to figure out how to get them loaded onto my phone so I could get started reading. My sister read some of it but I think she got sidetracked and has yet to get back to it. I finally got the audiobook loaded and ready to listen to before a road trip in early April but then next thing I knew, the trip was over and I never started the book. Procrastination is nobody’s friend!

I finally got around to starting and before I knew it I was finished. Whoever said “Begun is half done” was so right! The book was a lot like listening to his podcasts with loads of stories from everyday millionaires. It was really cool to hear how normal people like you and I saved and invested and stayed debt free long enough to become net-worth millionaires. Reading this book really gives me hope that us normal working class people can become millionaires too if we stay focused. I really enjoyed Everyday Millionaires, but I honestly liked his first book, Retire Inspired so much more. I felt like my thinking was adjusted more after reading Retire Inspired than this book. But both books are well worth reading. Best $20 I ever spent and now I have a hardcopy I can loan out once I get it back.

Here are some books by Dave Ramsey that, while a little older, are still super valid and worth reading also.

Have you read these or any other awesome financial books that you would recommend? Please share them in the comments below.

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May 16 2019

What Matters Most

When it comes to organizing, one of the most important things we can ever make the effort to organize is our lives. Get your ducks in a row. Get your sh*t together. However you say it, you need to actually DO it. I recently had the privilege of listening to my library’s copy of the audiobook, What Matters Most by Chanel Reynolds (affiliate link). None of us is getting any younger. We all think we are too young to need a will. I know I thought this back in the early nineties when our kids were still babies. We loved our kids, so we did it anyway. We went to a lawyer and had our wills drawn up, the whole nine yards. It was such a relief. It wasn’t terribly painful or even all that expensive when you consider the peace of mind it gave us. But here we are some twenty-five-ish years later with the same wills, never giving them a thought. When your life changes and your family grows up, things like our last wishes need to change too. We need to update them to reflect the life stage we are in now, the assets we have the people in our lives. All of these things change with time and as we age.

I don’t want to spoil the book, but I will say that this book is written by someone who went through the worst and lived to tell about it and use it to help others learn from her mistakes or oversights. She even includes a 31-page checklist that you can use to get your own sh*t together before you find you needed to but never got around to it.

There is a website called Cake that helps you through the process and gets you started.

If, like me, you still have work to do in the Get Your Shit Together department, you really SHOULD read this book. This book was published 3/19/2019, so it is likely to be the most current book on the subject. Do you have to read the book? Of course not, but it is an excellent book, so why wouldn’t you read it. Ms. Reynolds has shared the most painful part of her life with us (when she was too young to have to deal with this sort of thing) in order to show us how important this is. You could just click on all the links, download the checklist and work your way through it, but it won’t seem as imperative to get this stuff done if you don’t read the book. If there is ANYone in your life that depends on you or that you depend on, just do it. Do it for them, do it for yourself, but you need to do it.

Each of the links on this page leads to an awesome resource to help you through this process. By sharing them with all of you in this post, I can no longer use the excuse of having forgotten or lost them. With any luck, I will have spurred at least one person to get their sh*t together because I took the time to share this subject with you here.

Feel free to check back in with me and keep at me until I can honestly say everything is in order and up to date. Hold me accountable, please! I have mentioned to Hubby that we REALLY need to update these legal papers, and sooner rather than later. Maybe we need to make a list of all the things we have been putting off that we need to do during a typical business day and then make the appointments and take that day off work together and just get it all done. Our reward for a day of doing stuff that sounds like something less than fun could be dinner and a movie afterward.

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Category: Book Review, Depth Year, Goals, Organizing, Planning, Review | Comments Off on What Matters Most
April 25 2019

Review: One Pot Sauce

I grabbed these two jars of sauce while I was shopping at my local Aldi store. They sat on my pantry shelf for a while, I must admit. Then I got to thinking about what an easy way this would be to throw dinner in the crockpot one Saturday, and out they came.

I had some huge chicken breasts I had gotten then tossed in the freezer because I hadn’t gotten around to doing what I intended with them in a timely manner. So I grabbed those and thawed them some the night before then left them in the refrigerator overnight to do the rest. This package had five huge breasts that weighed in between six and seven pounds total, so I was glad I had gotten two jars of the sauce. I also wavered back and forth trying to decide if my smaller 5-quart crockpot would be big enough or if I needed to pull the 7-quart pot out.

I finally decided that the 5-quart would be the correct amount of full (2/3 full) so I used that size. Here is what it looked like before it cooked:

I rinsed the chicken before putting it in layers in the crockpot. I fit it all in in just two layers, then poured the two jars of sauce on top and cooked it all on high for about four hours.

Hubby loved it! The sauce thinned out a lot so before I put the leftovers away, I boiled it on the stovetop for a long time to let it cook down and thicken up then added it on top of the three chicken breasts that were leftover to have for dinner during the work week.

Here are all the parts of the jar label that you might want to see:

So, don’t be afraid to try new things. Especially if the new things are food products from Aldi because they have the Double Guarantee as shown on the label above. I have honestly never even considered trying to take advantage of this guarantee because I usually love everything I try from Aldi, though to be fair I don’t get things that I am fairly certain I won’t like. You know your tastes better than anyone, but don’t be afraid to broaden your food horizons. Did you know Aldi now offers delivery?

Have you tried a new product recently that you really liked? Be sure to share it in the comments so the rest of us can try it too.

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