I have a wide variety of photos today…

While Noah’s car was being tuned earlier this week, we were short one car for a couple of days. Noah had Jerry’s car at school, Eli drove his car to his baseball game (he has to get there early) and then Jerry and I took my car to Eli’s game. Jerry had to leave early to go to work, so I figured I’d just catch a ride home with Eli in the Patriot.

Well, I had no idea what I was thinking when I told Jerry to just leave the lawn chairs and wagon with me and I’d bring them home. Eli’s girlfriend was riding home with us, Eli’s fishing gear was in the back seat, and all of his baseball stuff (catchers’ gear takes up a LOT of space) was in the hatch. I had to sit in the backseat (his girlfriend offered, but I didn’t mind) with three lawn chairs and a book bag on my lap. It was a tight squeeze!

Also, look how red my nose is. I was wearing a thermal shirt, a warm cowl neck shirt over it, my heavy winter coat, thermal pants with jeans over them, two pairs of socks, a winter hat, and mittens–also a heavy blanket wrapped around me–but it was still cold enough to feel like what I imagine Antarctica to feel like, haha. (It wasn’t just me, like it usually is–everybody there was shivering! There was even freezing rain for a little bit.)

Jerry send this to me and it made me laugh at how true it is. I have a million pictures of my cats sitting in the most awkward positions on my hips, knees, head, etc.

I was going to post just one photo to go along with it, but here is a whole collage, haha.

This time of year is when we start to see a few squirrels with mange. I have a tube of Ivermectin and I put a little on a walnut to feed to the squirrels that I can see have mange. This squirrel… I feel so sorry for her! She is missing an ear and half of her tail, and she is in the early stages of mange. I gave her a dose of the Ivermectin; I have to give her two more doses (only one dose per week). One of the squirrels with mange is super picky and won’t eat the nuts with Ivermectin. My dad suggested putting a little peanut butter over it, so I’m going to try that.

Jerry saw me doing my Duolingo lesson a couple of days ago and he said, “I want to learn a language! I’m going to download the app.” I told him that Spanish is the easiest one, so he should start with that. He said that he wants to learn Russian–hahaha! I tried Russian a few years ago and lasted all of three minutes before I deleted it. Jerry has never tried to learn a language before–it wasn’t required in his school–so I was curious how it would go.

And then I was *shocked* when he was going through the lessons and actually learning the alphabet and sounding things out. He was actually kind of giddy about it! After the first lesson, he was already telling me what letters make what sounds and saying some basic vocabulary words. I think it would be hilarious (and awesome) if we discover he’s got a knack for languages and never knew it!

I’m kind of amazed whenever I make seitan that I can make something from scratch that so closely resembles shredded chicken. It took a LOT of trial and error, but we finally perfected it (Jerry is good at making it, too). Lately, I’ve been loving it with a little barbecue sauce.

A few nights ago, both of the boys were home in the evening (along with Jerry and me) so we decided to do something a little nostalgic–eat ice cream and watch an episode of Naked and Afraid. (Ben & Jerry’s makes an amazing non-dairy ice cream called P.B. & Cookies!)  While we were watching the show, Chick was super fascinated with all of the wildlife (i.e. bees and fish). 

My weekly Friday morning picture of Duck curled up next to my head in the morning. I felt HORRIBLE today because right after I took this picture, I accidentally dropped my phone on us. I think it mainly got my forehead rather than landing on him, though.

I was looking through photos one day and I had an idea to do for Mother’s Day. I really don’t like Mother’s Day because I don’t ever want my kids to feel stressed about doing something or buying something for me. So, I decided that I’d like to give *them* a gift on Mother’s Day. I went though photos, picking out all the photos of each of the kids and me, and uploaded them to Snapfish for printing. (I chose photos of them individually–just Noah and me for his album and just Eli and me for his.)

I bought an album for each of them and I’m going to put the photos in the album, as well as write funny or cute stories about them on 4×6 cards to slide into the pages. I don’t have the time or the materials to make an actual scrapbook, but the photo album shouldn’t be too hard. I hope that they’ll enjoy looking through it and remembering all the fun stuff we’ve done together over the years.

I blame Duolingo for this email that I got! I always unsubscribe from junk email and when I clicked to unsubscribe, this is what came up, haha. From the words I could make out, I guessed I probably wanted to click “Sí” (yes) but then I wondered if I would be saying, “Yes, I’d like more emails, please.” I haven’t gotten any more, so I’m assuming I made the right choice 😉

Today was a rainy day AND there was no baseball (this is the first Friday without baseball in weeks), so I decided to take apart some old jeans and prep them for altering other jeans. I really love the pair that I altered recently to make them mid-rise instead of low-rise–they are super comfy and they are now my favorite pair of jeans!–so I want to add a second waistband to a couple of other low-rise pairs in my closet. I measured out the band of a pair that sat comfortably over my hip bones, like I wanted, and then I took in the waistband on a few old pairs that I’d cut up (like these American Eagle ones below). That way, I could add them to the low-rise jeans, making them sit higher.

I wanted to take out the part in the back between the safety pins, so I had to disassemble the band a bit before putting it all back together (bottom pic). I still have to add the top stitching (the orange thread) but I was really happy with how the waistbands turned out. Now I just have to add them to the top of a pair of low-rise jeans

I also cut off all the pockets and zippers from old jeans for other uses. I always save the fabric from the legs as well, for adding denim to straight leg jeans (to make them flare), or for patching holes, or for reinforcing seams on old favorite jeans. I’ve been really into sewing lately when I have time to play around with it!

Okay, I’m going to eat some dinner. I’m starving! Have a great weekend. xo