Friday Night Photos #109

Yay for Friday! I'm in a great mood today; I think that the weather finally starting to warm up a touch is helping. (It's only been warm for a couple of days, but it's starting to feel like spring.) 

Eli is now officially on spring break for the next nine days. He's not going anywhere, but I think he's going to have a good time. Jerry and I are going to Jeanie's house to take care of her dogs for an entire week--the longest I've been away since we went to Punta Cana in 2014!--and the boys will run the show at home. Eli didn't want to go with us, so I told him he could have a friend stay here with him.

I'm definitely nervous, but my parents are less than a mile away and they are going to check up on the boys. I jokingly (but not really) reminded the kids that we have security cameras so Jerry and I will know what kind of shenanigans go on around here ;)  Honestly, though, they're really good kids--I'm sure things will be fine.

I'm more worried about the cats than I am the kids! We're taking Joey with us because he loves Remy (Jeanie's basset hound), but the boys will be in charge of taking care of the cats. Cats are generally easy to take care of, but Duck is a different kind of cat, haha. He's very codependent and he's attached to my hip every possible moment he can be, so I'm worried he's going to have separation anxiety. I've been drilling it into the kids that they have to play with him--the other cats are pretty lazy, but Duck needs stimulation (usually playing fetch with wadded up paper balls).

Actually, that leads me to my one of my Friday night photos...

I was looking up creative ways to keep cats occupied when home alone (they won't be alone, but I know the kids won't be as attentive as I am) and rather than buying toys, I started making a few. The first was this cardboard box, haha. 

My mom bought something like it on Amazon several years ago when she had a cat and it was just a simple cardboard box with holes cut out in it. We have a ton of empty Amazon boxes in our garage, so I found one that seemed a good size and cut a bunch of holes in it. I put some treats in there and Duck spent a good 45 minutes making sure he got every last treat out (he's VERY food-motivated). Chick was interested long enough to get the easy-to-grab treats and then he decided a nap was more fun.

I still haven't been training for the 10K like I should be, and I'm really starting to get anxious about it. I ran a couple of times recently and it just hasn't been enjoyable. Aside from my stomach being upset (thanks to my iron supplements), the weather was not ideal:

A RealFeel of NINE. It was super windy and I felt like I was running backwards when I had a headwind. Why does it seem like there is a headwind in every direction?! The snow started coming down hard toward the end and I could barely keep my eyes open. I really need to get in a few more longish runs before the race, so I'll have to do them at Jeanie's. I know that I've had lots of excuses, and I never would have let those things keep me from running in the past; I just wish I felt motivated to do it!

On one of the warmer days (temps in the 50's) I removed the sliding patio door and cleaned the bottom track really well. Then I replaced the pile weatherproofing strips and cleaned the guides on the bottom of the door. They were full of crud and they worked so much better after cleaning and oiling them! It felt great to get this done. And it was much easier than I thought it would be.

One of my friends and I do the Wordle every morning and share our results (yes, we are total nerds!). One day last week, the word was YACHT. I could faintly remember that we talked about that word before. I couldn't find it, but my friend sent me this screenshot from June of last year when I had texted this...

Interestingly enough, I ended up guessing it in three! Now I'm just waiting for the word QUEUE to be the Wordle, haha.

I finally figured out the problem I was having with my serger when trying to hem my jeans last week. I watched some YouTube videos and on one of them, someone had a little trick for threading the serger--I tried it and I was so happy that it worked! I was getting so frustrated with it. I was able to hem the jeans with the ladder-like stitch and I love it--it's so much easier than the other way I was hemming (at 5'4", I have to hem almost every pair of pants I buy). The stitches aren't completely even, but it was hard going over the seams. 

Jerry and I were lying in bed a few days ago and I can't remember why this came up, but we were laughing about how when he pulls his head back, his neck is the same size as his head--and that it looked like a thumb (I literally laughed out loud as I wrote this). So I'm holding my thumb up to compare to Jerry's head, haha. 

Meanwhile, on my lap...

Phoebe, Estelle, and Joey found me irresistible, apparently. Chick and Duck like to sleep in the beds on the wall in the evening, but these three try to get as close to me as possible.

And last but not least, Jerry surprised me with this hoodie as a "just because" gift today...

I love it! And it matches really well with the comfy yellow pants I bought at Goodwill recently.

Well, that's all I have. I think I may do another "wordless week" while I'm at Jeanie's, so I can just prep the posts ahead of time and then not even open my computer for the entire week. If not, I'm sure next Friday will be full of dog photos ;)

Have a great weekend! xo