Tea Party Celebration

I loved that warm and sunny break from the cold we had in the middle of the day!  The wind and rain we have again are scaring Arien, so she's back in the basement for protection.  😅  She's really cute when she's scared, but I do feel bad that she's so scared.  I don't understand why she's scared though because she wasn't always like that, so I think something must have happened when we weren't home or something.  I think I'll go make her a cat-sized bomb shelter (aka pillow and blanket fort 😂) and see if that helps.

I don't know exactly when Haleth was born, but she is probably two years old now, so we had a little celebration!  I didn't think she would live this long as my female hamsters have tended to have shorter lifespans, but I'm thrilled she has!  She actually seems to be in really good health so I hope she sticks around for a lot longer.  Or at least until March when we can celebrate her gotcha day.  💗  Maybe I'll try again to get her to actually wear her party hat.  😂

This was the first tea party that Glorfindel has attended.  He quite liked it!  Although he tipped over his tea cup after he was done eating.  I think he needs to practice his manners.  At least he is cute!  😅

Last summer when I first heard about text-to-image AI art and saw some of it, I quickly knew I wanted to check it out.  I was busy with work though so it wasn't until last December that I spent a couple hours over two days reading about it, looking into different platforms, and trying out a couple of free versions.  I soaked up all the info I was finding and the first chance I got, I proceeded to spend an hour telling Joe about everything I was learning and what I wanted to use this for.  He dived right into learning about it as well and by that night, we had Stable Diffusion installed on our desktop.  I definitely have a lot to learn, especially since I haven't actually spent that much time using it, but I'm loving the results!  I have a lot of plans for what I want to create with this.  In the meantime, I'm planning to share some of my favorite images with each post.

I am impressed with how much better than hamsters look now compared to when I was first doing images with them last year.  I do still think some of them look too much like a mouse or even a guinea pig.  Anyways, I knew I wanted to create images that would show what a hamster birthday party could look like if it included a party hat, cake, and lit candles.  The results varied a bit and quite a few of them had the party hat lit in addition to the candles, which I find both hilarious and adorable.  Overall, I really happy with these!

Dog Mug

I'm loving this sunny day with the snow glistening outside, the cats sleeping in their hammocks in the windows next to me, and the sound behind me of quiet munching of a hamster who is awake in it's nest eating a midnight snack.  Days like today give me peace and joy.  When I am at home working, I often go without music as I find the silence so refreshing.  I think I surprise some people when they find out I would describe myself as both shy and introverted because I can be so friendly and talkative when I am with others.  But my ability to do that well is linked to how much quiet and alone time that I have recently gotten or that I can look forward to in the near future.  In case anyone might think I'm a music hater, I will clarify that I do love to listen to music, but sometimes it's too distracting for me or sometimes I crave silence, so I mostly listen when I'm doing housework.

These pictures of Haleth are just as old as the ones I posted last week.  😬  She doesn't look this brown anymore as her color has faded.  I don't know exactly when she was born, but I estimate that sometime next week she'll be 2 years old.  My plan is to gather up some of her favorite treats, get the pink hat out of storage, and throw her a party.  I will be sure to take pictures to post next week!  💕

This mug is actually in Glorfindel's tank now.  I decided that Haleth's pictures in this mug that were taken many months ago were too cute to not share, so I had to recreate the scene with Glorfindel too.  He didn't really sit still for the pictures and wouldn't look at the camera, but that's okay, because he's still adorable!

Hams in Basket

At the beginning of this week, Joe and I were feeling pretty burnt out.  He was thinking he might take a day off work even because he just needed a break that badly.  But the break he needed came in the form of 6 inches of snow causing 2 e-learning days.  😊  Unfortunately, I had to work all day yesterday, and by the time I was done, I ended the day with a pretty bad headache.  But today I can take it a bit easier which I'm definitely grateful about, especially since I got my flu shot this morning and my arm is starting to get a bit sore.  😞

These pictures of Haleth are honestly so old.  I don't remember exactly when I took them, but it was back when Fili was still alive and before I had gotten Glorfindel.  But Haleth is just so cute that I still wanted to share them.  Haleth will be 2 years old in a couple weeks, so apparently I need to start planning her party!  Haha!  I can tell that her hair is much lighter now than it was when these were taken, but other than that, she's doing well.  ❤

I decided that I loved those pictures I took a while ago of Haleth so much that I had to find the basket and redo this scene with Glorfindel.  I seriously just adore Glorfindel!  I don't think I've ever had a Syrian hamster that was as active during the day as he is.  Also, Joe normally doesn't interact much with my hams, but he actually really likes Glorfindel and has gotten him out to hold without my prompting which just melts me.  ❤

Arcade Toys

I meant to post these like a month ago.  😐  I have had a busy month, but I'm close enough to being caught up on the more important things that I figured I could take a few minutes to get these out there.  These toys were won from a claw game at Combat Ops when we went with our friends.  We had to wait in line to use this machine, and when we finally saw our chance, we decided to have Joe use it as we figured he'd be the most successful.  To our surprise, on his first try, he managed to grab two toys.  I reached into the compartment to grab them, but I quickly realized that one of the ones I was holding wasn't one that I saw drop from the claw.  I got on the ground to reach farther into what was actually a quite large compartment and found a couple more toys left behind.  So that was cool!  Haha!

The weeks have been flying by and I recently realized that Haleth is getting fairly old.  She'll be 2 years old in February!  I don't see her too much as she's always only been active while I'm sleeping, so I don't really know if she's really slowing down any.  But she seems healthy to me, so I hope I still have a long time with her as she's so sweet!

For the first few weeks of having Glorfindel, he was always already awake when I got up and would stay up each morning until about 10.  I'd also find him awake at night starting around 8, so I would get to interact with him a lot in a single day.  I especially loved hanging out with him in the mornings while I drank my coffee.  But as it's gotten colder and darker, he seems to have switched to a more normal hamster schedule like Haleth, and now I don't see him as much.  He's so dang cute though!  This was his first photo session, and he did so well!  I can't wait to do more pictures with him!

RIP Fili

 My little old ham, Fili passed away earlier this week.  He was about 2 years and 9 months old which is super old for a hamster and why he earned the nickname as my immortal ham.  I got Fili in March of 2020 (along with his brother Kili) from the Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control right before we went on lockdown for the pandemic.  Kili passed away back in April 2022, but Fili lived on for another 7 months.  Fili loved food but got progressively grumpier over the last 6 months and seemed happy being mostly left alone, so that's what I did.  After Kili passed away, Fili became my favorite office buddy because he took over spending a lot of time awake during the day to get snacks and go for a run on his wheel.  However the last couple of weeks, Fili really wasn't out and about much, so I knew that his age was finally catching up with him.  Each day that he would wobble out of his little hut to grab a drink and putter around doing hamster things brought a smile to my face knowing he made it to yet another day.  I'm gonna miss the little guy!  Below are some pictures I never ended up posting of him, including the last 6 pictures which were taken just last week.  💗