Greetings to you on this lovely Monday afternoon. It’s one filled with cuddles on my end, as yesterday we welcomed two new additions to our little family: baby ratties! I can’t believe how tiny, soft and adorable they are- it gets me every time. More on the babies at the end of this diary, but let’s take a look at everything else I was up to this week first.
On Monday my friend texted to see whether I wanted to come to IKEA with her, to pick up a few things and try the new vegan hot dog they sell. I couldn’t refuse as my love for IKEA is strong :) As we were walking through the showrooms this little coffee table caught my eye. Our wooden coffee table had been falling apart for months and I thought this would be a really nice replacement for it, so I sent a picture to Robbert to see what he thought. He liked it as well so I ended up buying it straight away.
Sorry for this not-so-appetizing picture, haha, but the vegan hot dog is really good! I’m pretty sure it’s made of the same stuff they use to make the veggie “meat”balls, which I love, so I’m very pleased with this as well. At 70 cents this is definitely something I’ll be getting more often.
My friend and I came to our house and as we were getting ready to assemble the new coffee table, the old one’s leg broke off. Again. Robbert had re-screwed and glued that thing (and one other leg) countless times already so this really was the last straw. We got rid of it for safety reasons as well as out of frustration. You just can’t place pots of hot tea or laptops on something that could crash down any moment… This coffee table was beautiful, but the quality was unacceptably bad.
Luckily the new one is wonderful. In IKEA we trust, hahaha! I had a little bit of trouble styling it as the old one was so different, and I’m still not 100% satisfied, but I think this decor is good enough for now. Plus, I got to buy a new plant, which is always nice.
Tortilla chips and guac on our new, perfectly steady, coffee table. Yay!
A few weeks ago I got an email from Malou, a portrait photographer who was wondering whether I’d like to shoot with her one day. I always think photoshoots are lots of fun and I loved the photos on her website, so last week we met up in Leiden to take some autumnal portrait shots.
I’ve never been to Leiden before and I was baffled by how beautiful this city is. I definitely want to come back here for a full day and explore more!
Malou takes amazing portrait and wedding photos and our pictures turned out amazing. She sent me these two as a preview while I wait for her to finish editing the other ones, and if they’re all going to look like this I’m one very happy camper. Check her out here to see more of her work!
When the sun was starting to go down we had a cup of tea at a cafe and called it the day.
Shooting some videos! I finally managed to film ahead again, after a very long time. I’m currently ahead by a week when it comes to videos and it’s a really nice feeling, knowing I don’t have to rush things. I’m hoping to get ahead a little bit more and hope to get ahead with my blog posts as well, but a week of videos is a really nice start.
I filmed a braiding tutorial that’ll be up later this week.
Soft fuzzy slipper weather is here! There have been a few times last week when I’ve felt really cold, so I pulled my bunny slippers out again. They’re so comfy :)
On Friday night, Robbert and I went to De Parade with a few of our friends. De Parade is a theatre festival where you can see all kinds of plays, but there’s music and food and other things as well. I’d never been before but I’ve wanted to go for a few years, so I’m glad we finally went. Two of our friends worked in one of the stands there and they invited us over.
We saw two plays, and ended up in a silent disco. Everyone wears headphones and the music is only played through those, which makes for a hilarious sight for passers by. All these people dancing and singing to no music :) This was loads of fun and I definitely want to do this again some day!
We stayed out pretty late so next day I decided to take it slow. Robbert was off with a few friends and I spent the day doing some decluttering around the house. We live in a super tiny apartment so regular decluttering is necessary. I was able to free up this drawer and decided to use it to store my glasses and sunglasses, of which I have a pretty sizeable collection right now. I’m really happy with my collection of glasses, by the way. Having some variation makes wearing glasses every day much more fun.
I also got rid of some old makeup and cables that no longer work (I always wonder why I didn’t throw those out when they broke in the first place).
It’s been a week since I jarred my sauerkraut, so I took it out to take a look, see if everything’s ok, and take a sniff. It smells mostly of horseradish right now (I put some in, after my grandma’s recipe) and not sour at all yet, so I’ll have to wait a little longer before I get to enjoy this. Although I have to say I’m just really relieved it hasn’t gone bad so far.
On Friday I got an email from the rattery asking whether I could come pick up the rittens a bit sooner, meaning this weekend. I was surprised as I wasn’t expecting them for a few more weeks, but the little ones grew really quickly as they had two moms nursing them so they were big enough to go to their new homes already. So I set up the little cage, and off we went on Sunday. This big brother to be was very interested in the little cage, haha!
Here they are! Little Bran and Cefin (yep, Welsh names this time) on their first car journey. I’ve never had two rats that are this similar in colour, but the rat lady said they should change colour a bit as they age. One of them also has white spots on his belly which the other doesn’t and their personalities are different of course, so we can tell them apart by that.
When they came home we gave them a bit of time to explore their new cage, get settled, and rest for a few hours. Rittens always live in a separate, smaller cage for a few weeks after they get here, as the space between the bars on the large cage is big enough for them to fit through when they’re this small. We also want to be 100% sure they have a good relationship with the old rats before we put them all in a cage together, so they only meet under supervision for a while at first. Oh, and they get a different diet from the big boys, which is easier to maintain like this as well.
When the older boys woke up in the late afternoon, we went ahead and introduced them all on the sofa. It went really smoothly! The big boys sniffed them all over and turned the little ones onto their backs, and after that they were friends pretty much straight away. No aggression whatsoever from any side, yay!
We took everybody out again in the evening and they chased each other around and played until the little boys fell asleep. I took the big boys out again this morning and the first thing they did was run over to the little cage to check on the rittens, haha! I’m sure they’re all going to be great friends :)
And that was my week! Be sure to follow me on Instagram (@loepsies) if you want to see more of Bran & Cefin, I’ve been posting a lot of stories with them.
Talk to you soon!
Welcome home, little guys! They are so cute :-)