What I’ve Been Up To [6]: Guinea Pigs!

I love guinea pigs. Anyone who knows me well knows this about me. I used to have guinea pigs as pets as a child, but the last one passed away about a year before I moved out of my parents’ home and since then I’ve been guinea pig-less. Having a guinea pig cage in student housing isn’t the best idea, so for the past couple of years, I’ve had to make do with following a ton of guinea pig accounts on Instagram. Which is fun, too!

But a few months ago my boyfriend and I moved in together into an actual apartment with actual rooms and stuff. It’s been quite exciting. This also meant that I could finally get guinea pigs again, though, and after careful consideration of the responsibility it would take as well as spending some time convincing my boyfriend, we decided to go for it! Last weekend, we visited a guinea pig shelter and brought home my two new best friends: Arthur and Ziggy.

They’ve been with us for less than a week now, but I already love them so much! Arthur is the one on the left, with the brown face with a white stripe, and Ziggy is the one on the right, with lots of white. They’re both two years old and have been together for that entire time as well, the last three months of which they’ve spent at the shelter. I don’t know why they were at the shelter, but it doesn’t seem like they have been mistreated or anything. They’re actually quite tame already! Arthur has been taking food from my hand since day one, and Ziggy followed about two days later.

I’ve been sitting next to their cage a lot, watching them explore and interact with each other. The first couple of days, there was a bit of a dominance struggle, which I worried about a little, but they seem to be okay now. The people at the shelter had said that they might have to reestablish their hierarchy in new surroundings, so it was completely normal, but I was a bit scared they’d keep at it. Ziggy seems to be the dominant one, even though he is smaller and also more easily frightened. Arthur is very mellow and seems to just be fine with everything that happens. He’s not particularly scared but does love to hide.

They’re absolutely adorable and since they’re going to be a pretty big part of my life, I thought I’d share them with you, even though they’ve got nothing to do with either books or baking. I’m not very good at taking pictures of them yet, though – they sure move around a lot more than books do. Who would’ve thought? I’m in awe of all of those guinea pig Instagrammers (Guinstagrammers? Pigstagrammers?). How do they get their piggies to sit so still? Out of the 43 pictures I’ve taken about four or five seem to be in focus. Perhaps I should just let the piggies be and focus on taking pictures of books and baked goodies.

Anyway, this is what I’ve been up to lately! I’ve also been reading Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – the final book in the Throne of Glass series and I’m actually quite loving it. It’s so big, though! At nearly 1000 pages it’s definitely going to be the biggest book I’ll have read by the end of the year.

But now, let’s chat! What have you been up to? Do you have any adorable pets you want the world to know about? What have you been reading? Let me know in the comments!