For the last couple of months, I've been really missing my mother-in-law, Paula. 10 years ago, when we were still grieving the loss of Joe's grandma and adjusting to Joe's new job at Snider, his mother suddenly passed away. There were about 60 days between the deaths of his grandma and his mom, and they occurred at the same place. I remember the staff being bewildered and struggling to know what to say to us because they remembered Paula. She had been there so much as she cared for her mother, and she was so strong through it all. But that was just the way Paula was. She was a fiercely strong and caring women. I miss her so much. I miss the love, support, and encouragement that seeped out of her onto everyone around her. I miss the fierceness within her that she used to protect us. I miss her generous spirit that reached out to those struggling who just needed a hand to get back up again. I miss the way she made you want to be a better person. There was so much I wanted to learn from her; so much I wish I could ask her. I see so much of Paula in her sons, Joe and Quinn. 💗
Paula never knew about my love for hamsters. I got Tarcil just days before she went to the hospital and I never told her about him as it didn't seem important. Plus, I knew she hated mice so I kinda assumed she wouldn't have liked hamsters either. But regardless of that, I know she would have been so encouraging and supportive of this blog. I'm honestly a bit surprised to realize that I've had this blog for over 10 years now. My goals were to have a outlet for me to practice being creative with a cute, but not necessarily cooperative model. I wanted the end result to be cute pictures to bring joy to others. While I think I've maintained these goals, I do think haven't always been good about pushing myself as much for creative pictures. And my writing has shifted from superficial fluff just to have something to post to me sharing authentically about my feelings about what's going on in my life. I don't know who, if anyone, reads my blog posts. I used to spend a lot of time focusing on the analytics and trying to promote my blogs, but as I've gotten older, I've realized I truly don't care about any of that because the act of writing is cathartic for me. And so I continue. Sometimes out of a weird sense of obligation, but mostly because I just enjoy it. I like creating scenes or figuring out ways to showcase the cuteness of the hamsters, I like taking the pictures, I like editing them, I like writing and journaling about my life, and I like publishing these posts. For someone who craves control, releasing these posts out to the internet not knowing who will see them is both freeing and therapeutic to me.
Míriel probably has the biggest personality of any hamster I've ever had. She can be so loud and demanding. She definitely loves food, especially treats!
Elendil is my precious boy. Seeing him just melts my heart. He's ridiculously cute, especially because of his size. He's just so dang tiny, and so extremely long. And then there's his tail that he uses to hold onto my fingers which is just hilarious because his tail is so short. I love him so much.
