April 15, 2022

Friday Night Photos!

It's been two weeks since I posted a Friday Night Photos, so I hope it's not too overwhelming. We'll start with Joey, since he's never in the spotlight. He was so happy to be up on the couch with Jerry and me. I love this picture of Jerry and Joey! It's rare that Jerry smiles without doing a "Jerry face" and while I love the Jerry face, a genuine smile is nice, too. And Joey totally looks like he's smiling.


After I wrote yesterday's post, I ended up taking pictures of pictures in order to have copies of about 550 pictures from when I was a kid. It took such a long time! It's so hard to find the right lighting and angle the picture so that it doesn't have a glare or reflection (especially of my phone that is taking the picture).

I spent some time thinking about how to prevent that and then I made my own little jig out of cardboard, Mod Podge, and white paper. I basically glued the white paper to the cardboard, making one side of the cardboard white. Then I poked a hole in the center, just big enough for my camera lens to show through. I used double-stick tape to stick my phone onto the side of the cardboard opposite the white side, so that the only thing you could see on the white side was my camera lens. This way, when I held up my phone to take a picture (of another picture), the reflection and glare wasn't there (most of the time--it was really hard to find good angles when the sun was out from behind clouds).

I had Noah take these pictures because I obviously couldn't do it with my phone:

It worked pretty good--I did this for over 550 pictures!! It took me several hours, but now I've uploaded all of them and I'm happy to have the "digitals". 

I just finished this book called 'False Witness' by Karin Slaughter. It's a suspense/thriller and it's really good! It's would take forever to get into all the details of what it's about, but if you generally like the same books as I, then check this one out for sure. It doesn't move super quickly, so it took me longer to read it, but I really liked it. And there were several twists that were a fun addition. (And no, I was not reading while driving in this picture!)


This is just a picture of Eli at his baseball game (he's batting). I can't get over how much he's grown. 


Maybe this is something that's already all over Pinterest, but I was pretty excited to come up with this idea. My favorite vegan meals are basically a grain of some sort (brown rice, barley, quinoa) along with beans (my favorite are chickpeas in these types of recipes), vegetables (whatever I have on hand--usually broccoli or cauliflower) and a sauce. I looked up several recipes for sauces and then I took out all the ingredients for the sauces and started prepping them into Mason jars. 

I made four different types--orange sauce, Chinese garlic sauce, teriyaki sauce, and general tso's sauce (yes, I like Asian flavors!). After mixing the ingredients in mason jars, I poured the sauces into silicone cupcake molds and put them in the freezer. Once frozen I transferred them to plastic bags and then back into the freezer.


Now, to make dinner, I grab half a can of chickpeas and one of the little cups of sauce and put them in a sauce pan. I let them cook (covered) over low heat until the sauce is melted and thickens. Then I heat up a cup of whatever grain I already have cooked in the fridge, and I pour the chickpeas onto it. (You can obviously add vegetables as well--on this particular day, I was starving and in a hurry, and just ate it like this):



It makes dinnertime so easy! (For sauce ideas, you can check out my Pinterest board where I have them all saved.) If any of them have a non-vegan ingredient (like chicken broth) I just swapped it with a vegan alternative. But that didn't come up more than once or twice.

Okay, the rest of these pictures are cat photos. I take way too many of them, I know! 

As I mentioned, I worked some more on the little cat "bubble hut" thing that I was making out of the kitchen table I milled down into useable oak. (The top and bottom parts are made from pine, only because I had pieces that were large enough.) I made a reusable jig for my router to cut holes of any size and it was SO easy to cut the hole out of this. The plastic piece has little holes in it so you can nail it to the center of the hexagon. Then you just rotate the router around that point, cutting out the hole. The slit down the middle of the wood was just because it was a scrap piece and it was already there. I've since filled it in.


I screwed in the plastic bubble and attached that to the top/front. (I originally made this so that I could hang it on the wall with the bubble in front and holes in the sides for the cats to crawl into. But Phoebe loves it with the bubble on top and she's been sleeping in there so much for the past week.

The first picture shows how it would be if I attach it to the wall (higher up, obviously). I like the second picture because you can see Duck's face peeking out through the bubble. (I still need to sand it; you can see where I filled in the nail holes) and finish it somehow, probably with paint since I didn't use oak for the whole thing.



This is how Duck and I play sometimes--he plays with me the same way he plays with Chick. I use my hand to grab at him, especially his neck, and he grabs my hand to bite me and "rabbit kick" me with his hind legs. When he and Chick do it, it looks like they're fighting to the death, but they love it. When one of them is tired, they lie limp and then the other one stops the biting. It's really cool how they do that. And Duck does the same to me--he'll be "fighting" with my hand, biting and kicking, and then if I let my hand go limp, he immediately stops until I'm ready again. He sees me as a fellow cat! ;)



This is Duck and Chick after I spray their toys with catnip spray (it's called Meowijuana). They LOVE it and it makes them play and wrestle for a good 30 minutes afterward.



Then they just chillax with a nap in the sun :)



Jerry was taking some comparison pictures of me in all-black running clothes (I took the same ones in January 2021). Duck kept getting in the way, so I had to put him on the bed. But I like this picture Jerry took:


I'll post the side-by-side photos this weekend. There is quite a big difference!

And finally, an update on Phoebe. I have no idea why Jerry is making a peace sign, but Phoebe was happily sleeping on his lap for a couple of hours. 



I love this picture of Phoebe and me. This is when she was smelling the Burt's Bees lip balm on me, but it looks like we're kindred spirits, no? hahaha. My nose was all red from crying. This was what we thought was going to be her last day.



And this is the change in her in just a few days of fluids and eating. She's still skinny, but definitely not like that first picture. She's eating right now, but she wants nothing to do with her special kidney diet food. I'm just going to feed her what makes her happy until we know it's time to let go of her. When I am super old, I just want to eat ice cream and cookies all day long. I'm just so glad she's looking so much better!


Have a great weekend! xo

7 comments:

  1. So glad to see Phoebe doing better. She is getting all of the loves ❤️

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  2. I love the picture of Jerry & Joey. A keeper for sure. Glad to hear Phoebe is doing better. Love her all you can. Time passes so quickly. I like the dinner ideas. I never thought to freeze sauces. It will be cheaper to make my own vs store bought.

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  3. Thanks for the info on digitizing photographs - I have 100's of them too and love your idea for making it easier. Also, thanks for the recommendation on the Karen Slaughter book - I discovered that I had downloaded it as an Audible book but forgot about it!

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  4. That photo of you and Phoebe warms my heart and wow does she look better. Thanks for the update.

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  5. I'm happy to see that Phoebe is doing better. Now that you're giving her her favorite foods, she'll probably live forever! :) (If only it would work that way.) I also like the photo of Jerry and Joey. You've said that Jerry does the "Jerry face" because his smiles look creepy, but that one looks like a normal smile.

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  6. Great photos 😊 I love the idea for the sauces and chickpeas, thanks for sharing!

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  7. Recipes for your Asian sauces please. Love this idea to freeze just enough separately for one meal or serving. So glad to see Phoebe has put on some weight.

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