#89 - Get some sort of indoor pet

When we go to the beach, I would rather spend my time looking for seashells rather than playing in the waves or laying out, to tell you the truth. I can walk up and down the beach for hours (much to the chagrin of the people I am with usually) collecting animals and shells, without a care in the world. Nothing much was different this trip to the beach except that Jennifer (sister-in-law) was also a fan of this.

I love the ocean. I love getting in the warm water when it's too hot to stand the sand any longer. I love playing in the waves. I love swimming. BUT. I hate the freezing water. I hate stepping on something squishy or sharp and not knowing what it is. I hate swimming and seeing a jellyfish right next to me at the last second. I hate trying to pick up a shell and watching it scuttle away because it's a crab and I would have freaked out if I had stepped on it. So, there it is.

Anyway, so I was spending my time walking along the ankle-deep to knee-deep water catching shells and attempting to catch fish when I found this really cool shell... which started moving. I had caught a hermit crab! Yes!


I am keeping him in one of Brianna's beach toys for now (she wasn't using this one anyway - she was more interested in her shovel and the shells we were collecting). The problem is, I know what to feed him, I just don't know how long I'm actually going to be able to keep him alive. If he had died already I would have felt really guilty bringing him home but at this point I think he's doing pretty well.

A couple of years ago we had an indoor dog for the first time and we found out that I'm mildly (but irritating-ly) allergic to dogs in confined spaces. Stephen doesn't like cats because they shed too much indoors. So my choices for an indoor pet were becoming limited. Before we were married and the year we were in Charleston, we owned several "exotic" pets - scorpions, tarantulas, and snakes were the big ones because they were the easiest to care for. When I made this goal on my 101 list I was really thinking that I'd be able to convince Stephen to go for a kitten. I've since realized that the only cat he'll agree to is a hairless one (AGGGH!! Scary!!)

and it turns out that although I love kittens I don't particularly like cats. I really just wanted something to snuggle with, and now that we have a 14-month old (yikes! today is her 14-month birthday!) who has time to snuggle during the day?? So Crab is as close as I'm going to get to having an indoor pet. And I'm marking this off.

I will put up beach pictures soon, I promise. I haven't even looked at them yet.