Friday Night Photos #108

Well, Becky left for Minnesota this morning. Jerry and I went to Brian's last night to help Becky load the moving trailer; I also wanted to say goodbye to Becky. I know that I'll still see her, but probably only once or twice a year. Being me, I cried all the way home; I'm really going to miss her.

She told me about Luke's new school, though, and WOW--they start learning Latin in kindergarten! Luke is unbelievably smart and it sounds like a great school for him. The charter school is hard to get into, but Becky just so happened to be in the right place at the right time and the right person happened to overhear her ask about a spot for a transfer student--it definitely seems like it was meant to be, because a spot for a transfer opened up two days prior, and they gave it to Luke. Since Riley is his sibling, she'll automatically be able to go as well in the fall when she starts kindergarten.

Anyway, I don't have a lot to post today, but here goes...

Brian 3D printed another puzzle to put together and said it was harder than the first (I think I posted a picture of that one a couple of weeks ago). These are the pieces. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do with it! All of the pieces come together into one layer, forming a square that is the height of the short side of the pieces (that's a terrible explanation). The whole time I worked on it, I wasn't even sure if I was doing it correctly!

Jerry and the boys were watching a show in the living room and I didn't want to be a distraction while doing this at the table, so I ended up bringing it into the bathroom so I could use the hard floor and sit on the comfy floor mat, haha. I sat there for probably about three hours; I forgot to look at the time so I'd know how long it took me to put together. After the show was over, Jerry came in and took this picture of me. I was concentrating so hard that I didn't even really realize he was there.

In the end, I decided to ignore the colors (apparently, the pieces on the bottom should be one color and the top layer should be the other). I got down to one last piece and it was clear to me that it would fit there--but I couldn't get it in! I'm not sure if the pieces were supposed to be woven together like I did it; there was no way I could slide that piece in, so I called it done. And now I can't take it apart, hahaha. That's why I'm not sure if I did it right or not--I think the pieces were supposed to drop into place easily. I'll have to ask Brian when he gets home from Hilton Head. Regardless, I really like putting these puzzles together!

My dental hygienist raved about Waterpiks at my last two cleanings, so Jerry and I finally bought one a few months ago (he has the same hygienist). I resisted getting one because it just seemed so messy. Well, I wasn't wrong! I made and sent this meme to Jerry a few days ago to explain the water that he'd likely see all over the mirror, walls, and even ceiling, hahaha. I'd put the nozzle on but apparently I didn't snap it in well because when I turned it on, the nozzle came off and water just started spraying everywhere.

Since I've felt back in control with my food intake lately, I decided it was safe to have peanut butter in the house again ;)  I have been kind of obsessed with apples and peanut butter this week. I think I'm going to make some granola to put on top, too. The apples + peanut butter + granola was a favorite snack for a long time when I was losing weight way back in 2009-2010.

Here is Joey while on our walk the other day. Despite being FREEZING cold outside, it was a pretty day! Joey was thrilled to run along the lake (when it's muddy we stay on the road, and this is the muddy time of year here). We walked three miles of the old route we used to do daily. 

Poor Joey has had his bed taken over by cats. Usually it's Chick that sleeps on it (he sprawls out and takes up the whole space) but I thought it was sweet to see Phoebe there yesterday. She kind of follows the sunlight through the house because she likes the warmth.

This morning, I decided I really needed to read some more of my book. I've been reading this same book for MONTHS. I like it! But I just haven't been into reading lately. I'm going to try to finish it this weekend. I'm reading The Cipher by Isabella Maldonado--from my favorite genre, a good thriller about a serial killer. It's actually the first of a series, so I may read more from the series when I finish.

I spread out all of my sewing stuff today to do whatever hemming/mending/altering I had in queue. I have a bag in my closet where I throw things that will need the sewing machine. It's actually kind of fun--once a month or so, I pull it out and work on it. Today, I reinforced a couple of seams in Eli's sweatshirts and I switched a pair of Noah's pajama bottoms to a drawstring instead of the elastic band. He was going to get rid of them because the elastic was "weird".

I need to hem the black jeans I recently bought at Goodwill, and I had the idea today to use a flat lock stitch with my serger to make the hem kind of different. I did this with a pair of fingerless mitts that I made and I loved how it looked. This was a test piece with denim and I was so excited to do the hem this way! 

However, I was having SUCH a hard time with it. Once the test piece came out well, I thought all was good. But every time I would try to do the hem of the jeans, one of the threads would break and/or I'd end up with a huge tangled mess. Meanwhile, Duck was driving me CRAZY with his need for attention. After a couple of hours, I gave up. I'll try it again later, because I think it will look cool when it's done.

And finally, I forgot I had taken this screenshot. I posted this on Facebook in 2014, but when I saw it come up, it made me laugh again. Noah was only nine years old at the time and I was impressed by his analogy!

And I'm out. Have a great weekend! xo