Babies babies babies!

Now that I'm over that darned bug that kept me planted on the sofa within a wall of tissue boxes, I'm back up and running, desperately playing catch-up from the lost week (and with Christmas just around the corner! GACK). Anyway, it appears that Fate gave us some early Christmas presents this year, in the form of baby fish! They say the sign of a healthy tank is reproducing fish, however, that wasn't our intention -- we were told all our Platys were males, but that fact was proven swimmingly false when we spotted four tiny fry hiding amongst the rocks. I have to admit, they were darned cute. They looked like swimming eyeballs. They've grown quite a bit already and are becoming progressively bold. The tiniest one has a black tail, which I've named "Black Tip," who is my personal favorite. While all the other fish avoid the cleaning tube (we use to change out the water), Black Tip must always investigate. He (she?), being particularly pugnacious, explored just a hair too close this last time and ended up being sucked into the tube and into the holding tub! We scooped him out with a net and plopped him back in the tank, no worse for wear. You could almost hear him bellow to the others, "You haven't lived until you've shot the tube! What a rush, dude!" As cute as they are, this does present a problem: We cannot identify which are the males or females (no matter what online sources advise), but we are assuming that the two really fat ones are the females, with bellies full of eggs. So now we must get another tank to separate them because I simply won't allow any of our babies to meet ill-fated ends for the sake of population control. We really like the new BiOrb or BiUbe -- it's like the Mac version of a fish tank. Mindlessly easy to set up, clean and run, a 9 year old could do it. No complicated filter systems or biochemical degrees necessary! It's quiet and it looks beautiful, too!

Speaking of babies:
How they've grown! Their heads are now as big as they were when they were wee munchkins! So here are the "Three Amigos" (albeit in a fuzzy shot)! I like how their tails are looped and Wuzzle's bleary-eyes are peering at the camera. When I dive into rat motifs in earnest, these fellas offer no dearth of design inspiration, but when they aren't eating or sleeping, they're running amok and it's difficult to get a decent photo to use as future reference. To me, happiness is an armful of little squirming rattie bodies, silky-soft, hot (like hot-water bottles!), gooey, whiskered and you can feel their little heart-beats going a mile a minute in their little chests.

Speaking of inspiration, Lynn Fraley and myself are off to my rat vet's annual Christmas studio sale tomorrow! She works in fused glass and hand-built clay, in fun animal motifs and crazy people characters, often integrating the two together. So fun! I always find wonderful stuff at her sale for friends, family....and myself! Her studio is amazing, too -- a big airy room with big windows on three sides. And her kiln is huuuuge -- you could fit two people in there! Fabulous! I'm going to teach her about pressing tiles, and she's going to teach me how to do hand-built animals...can't wait! She's a great egg, and during my rattie's check-ups, we always yak about animals, clay and the general mayhem that is art and inspiration. When she can, she stops by for Mayhem, too.

Then tomorrow night, Hubby, Mom, my cousin, Greg, and myself are off to the annual Christmas concert held at the Ann Morrison Center nestled inside the campus of our local college (Boise State University -- GO BRONCOS!), put on by the BSU Music Department. Now I must admit -- I completely forgot about this date, and now I have to re-juggle my schedule this weekend that was originally intent on packing Stormys for shipment on Monday, while also catching up in the studio! But after the deflated Christmas last year due to my back surgery, we're going to go full tilt this year as a "do over" -- and Mom is making sure we don't let things "slide," either. She's already put up a festive wreath outside, and Christmas bells on our door. I also must admit that have a tendency to neglect putting up Christmas decorations in favor of using that time for studio work (even though I have boxes full of them!). Plus I think of all the work involved with putting them away -- blorg! But I don't think Mom is going to let me get away with that this year .

However, I did get into the Christmas spirit unusually early already (I'm the type that usually gets whipped into a holiday panic two weeks prior) -- our local Barnes & Noble is having a Christmas children's book drive and I donated The Tale of Despereaux (of course). I can't wait for the movie! Giving kids the gift of reading great stories is a great way to kick off Christmas!

I don't know about you, but as a kid (and even now), I never cared about Santa or the Elves. They were something I completely ignored. Boring. For me, Christmas was all about the marvelous reindeer and the Christmas mouse! I've always been entranced by the reindeer, and this year's ornament is of a reindeer theme. While sculpting it, I actually decided to create a new reindeer ornament every year to fulfill this seasonal yen. Hey, one must follow a childhood vision!

"Dasher: Hey, what’s that reindeer doing with Santa’s sled?
Prancer: Oh, he’s just Vixen the broken seat."