Catch-Up Photos

Well, that was a long and unintentional four-day break! We had a super busy day on Friday and then I blinked and suddenly it's already Tuesday. To catch up a little, I'll post what would have been my "Friday Night Photos"--just a little bit about the week.

Yesterday, I had my second mammogram. I can't believe it had been a year already since my first one! I haven't gotten the results yet, but I have no reason to worry about it; it was just an annual screening.

I also saw my primary care doc for my annual physical. When she saw my lab work (the lipid profile I wrote about) she was stunned at my numbers. She said that people "would kill for numbers like these!" And then, "You must not have eaten a single carb for weeks before your tests."  Hahaha, this made me laugh. I reminded her that I am vegan and that the majority of my diet comes from carbs!

I did something I'd been wanting to do ever since we had to remodel the bedroom last year--I removed the legs from our bed frame. When the bedroom was torn apart and we were sleeping on our mattress on the floor, I actually really liked it; it seemed cozier somehow. The look of our bedroom is most certainly not for everyone, but we love it! (The cats do, too, of course. It's basically their room.)

Speaking of, every day I have to grab all of "Chick's" toys (he's the only one that really uses them) and toss them up on the shelves around my bedroom. (The shelves on top circle the entire room.) Chick LOVES to go get them and bring them down one by one. He makes this super loud meow that sounds like, "HELLO?! HELLOO-OOO!" when he has one. Sometimes when I go out to the kitchen in the morning, he's got all of his toys gathered like this on the floor. (His favorite is the "zebra mouse"--it's so ratty and nothing special, but that is his absolute favorite toy.)

And of course, when we get anything from Amazon:

The cats take turns trying out the boxes. Duck liked sitting in here and didn't want to get out. Then he decided he wanted to take a nap, so he laid his head in the corner and fell asleep. It didn't last long, but it was funny!

I happened to catch him mid-yawn as well, and the first picture looks like he's doing a Jerry face.

I'd been wanting to pierce my helix (upper cartilage of my ear) for a while. Since it's a pretty straight-forward piercing (no nooks or crannies), I used a couple of sterilized piercing needles to double pierce it myself. I'm pretty impressed at how it turned out--the hard part is getting the angle right. I like them!

I got out some sewing stuff in order to work on a pair of jeans and as soon as I set it on the floor, I walked over to the table to grab something. I turned back around and both kittens were already on my stuff! I don't know what it is about cats, but the second you put something on the floor, they have to sit on/in it.

I always put chia seeds in my cereal in the mornings, and when I was going to order some more from Amazon, I saw that a suggested item for me was a seed mix of chia seeds, ground flaxseed, and hemp seeds. It was very expensive, but it listed the ratio as being 9:9:2 respectively. I already had ground flaxseed, so I ordered the chia seeds and hemp seeds and just made my own mix. A fraction of the cost.

I've been putting two tablespoons in my Grapenuts with blueberries and soy milk. I've been eating this (with the chia seeds) for breakfast for almost two years now! I haven't gotten sick of it yet. 

This is one of the pictures that Jerry secretly took of me this week. (He's been doing it more frequently, and it's actually kind of fun to find them randomly on my phone, haha.) Here, I was working on the Connections puzzle from the NYTimes. I use a notebook to write everything out, because I'm a nerd, and it's something I look forward to every morning after my run! Duck likes to help.

We had SUCH amazing fall weather this past weekend. On Friday, I decided to cut down the trees in our front yard. Yes, you read that correctly. The apple tree and the "Asian pear tree". I put that in quotes because when I was pruning it on Thursday, I got stabbed in my wrist with a large thorn; it was killing me. I couldn't even bend my wrist! I finally started researching online to see if I should be worried, and it led to a rabbit hole of identifying pear trees.

And you know what? The tree that I'd been hoping to get Asian pears from for LIKE A GODDAMN DECADE is actually a callery pear tree! It's literally considered an invasive species, and it doesn't grow edible fruit. I wanted to go out there and just start hacking away at it. But I waited until Friday morning, and used a ladder and a manual handsaw to cut it down, piece by piece.

I decided to get rid of the apple tree, too. When I planted it, I chose granny smith because that was Noah's favorite. Now, nobody in the family eats granny smith apples, so they are kind of a waste. And if I'm going to try to grow fruit (as I've been trying for 20 years now), I might as well pick something I really want.

We still have to remove the stumps, but this is what they look like now. The yard looks so different!

Since I planted an *actual* Asian pear tree (Shinseiki) last fall, I ordered another to plant nearby in the backyard to cross-pollinate. And for the front yard, I ordered a cherry tree. The cherry tree I got is only 1-2 feet tall when it arrives, so I have no idea if it will last, but it will be fun to see if it does. I'm going to plant it right in the middle of the front yard. It's self-pollinating, so I don't need another.

We did quite a bit of yard work this weekend, and Jerry wanted to have a fire to burn some of the trimmings. I was working on a sewing project, so I brought it outside and sat by the fire with Joey. It felt like such a perfectly "fall" thing to do!

This is the project I did. I wasn't crazy about the gray owl shirt (the neckline was too wide for me) but I liked the owl. So I cut it out and sewed it onto a plain navy hoodie that I had. I love how it turned out!

I'll end with a homecoming picture of Eli. His girlfriend goes to a different school, so they had two homecoming dances this fall. They've been together for about 11 months now; they make such a cute couple!

And that's all I've got. I'll report with my Wednesday Weigh-In tomorrow :)