While the compromise is something I would done anyway with our living situation, it just shows what a cool chick I have. She could of said 4 tanks but knew I wanted to have a varied collection when getting back into the hobby and agreed to the rack system. She's the best! We're best friends and do everything together. If she hated my hobby, I wouldn't be able to enjoy doing it. She's always known a lot about animals and when we met in 2008, she knew I liked frogs and herpetology so wasn't surprised when I got back into it last year. She actually knew some common names when I met her and her favorite was my favorite (Blue Jeans).
If you see my join date here, I left the hobby in 2004-5 I believe, and came to the forum in October 2008. I was all set and ready to go with getting back into dart frogs like I am now. I was single, out of college, and had the extra cash to do so. Then BAM, a friend tells her at work to text me and see if I wanted to chat some time. She liked my picture in his phone I guess. The next week we go out on a coffee date for an hour, and then the night after that we go out for drinks and have been together ever since. This happened a couple of days after Halloween. I had found a guy on the forum to make me custom acrylic tank units and a couple of old friends in the hobby to buy some of my first new frogs from. But once I met her we were head over heals for each other and any of my interests in frogs at the time were not even a thought in my mind. I was on a cloud as that's what happens when you first fall in love. So when I joined and had HUGE plans as a single man, it quickly changed and I vanished until September 2010 when I started setting up a tank and now I'm finally a serious hobbyist again.
With our 8 week old newborn son Quinton, we're very busy but closer than ever and having a blast. Many regular people asked me if the frog thing would interfere with being a father when the baby came, and we both agreed that NOT A CHANCE. I mean how long does it really take to maintain a medium sized dart frog collection daily or be a part of the hobby? It's easy once you have it down to what works. It's no different than a new father having any other hobby. I told this to my father and he said that it's a baby, not rocket science. He is a huge sports fan, high school football coach, and everything that goes along with that. My parents had 4 children that are now 22, 26,28(me) and 31. He said when we were born that he still did everything he usually did and it wasn't much of a lifestyle change. Since I mostly just hang out with my fiance for fun, the only thing that has changed is that I am very HAPPY so I'm a better hobbyist, father, partner, and worker.
While I did add frogs, tanks, art project side business, etc. really really fast in my 8 months back in the hobby all while getting engaged and having a first son, I couldn't be happier and I have the energy and it feels easy to me. With frogs, I knew very early on my short term goals and long term goals I still have. It's like riding a bike.
She actually resisted for a bit but is now a pretty intelligent frogger. Not just that she watched me and knows what's going on....but she can spot health issues, name dozens of latin names and knows how the genus and species thing works. Plus she even knows about the former taxonomy. The surprising thing that I've noticed is that she has quickly picked up subtle things in the hobby that only a trained eye can see....to a new hobbyist, tinc morphs might be pretty daunting and confusing if it's brand new to them. But she can tell see a picture I'm looking at on the forum and say, "Oh that's a nice Oyapok tinc." I'm like, "what the..."
First latin name she learned from a book was Bufo bufo. As a inside joke between the two of us, she always says it in a weird voice whenever a toad is mentioned. Matt Mirabelli was talking to us at a table inside the hotel the night before frog day. We were talking about wild caught frogs and something came up with Devin Edmonds Madagascar talk and I had mentioned all the Boophis spp. tree frogs all of a sudden coming into hobby...of course she said Bufo bufo under her breath in a weird voice. Completely random and Matt kind of glanced over with a confused look on his face. lol
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