the grow house excitement is temporarily on hiatus while pending the germination of my seeds. staring at a mound of dirt isn't going to speed things up anytime soon. the earliest i can expect to see sprouts is about a week. this intermittent delay did give me time to suddenly remember i was supposed to pay my quarterly estimated taxes yesterday and quickly mailed out two checks to the federal and state tax revenue agencies.

2 days ago i did a water change on all my aquariums, including adding some pH increase buffer to the guppy tanks. i never bothered to take a new pH reading until today: the guppy tanks are at an optimal 7.4+ pH, while the tetra tank is at 6.0 pH. it's hard to tell if the fishes appreciate my water chemistry tweaks. i guess the only way i'll find out is if none of them die anytime soon.

spending the evening in the living room, it got cold enough that i turned up the heat for a change. for dinner i cooked up some salmon. later on i turned back down the heat and retreated to the smaller warm comfort of my bedroom.