Saturday Morning Photos

These were meant to be Friday Night Photos--a week ago!--but better late than never. Most of the photos I have on my phone are of recent projects I've worked on. I'll put those in a separate post though. I've been really into sewing lately, and it's been so cold outside (we had frost on the ground yesterday!) that I haven't been motivated to work on outdoor things. I *need* to clean the garage; during the winter, we just toss things in there to put away in the spring.

It's been an emotional week. Last weekend, just a few miles from me, a woman was driving drunk at about 3:00 in the afternoon and drove her car right into the side of a boat clubhouse. Where there was CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY happening. She hit and injured 15 people and two kids died--siblings, ages 4 and 8 years. An older sibling and mom are still hospitalized and there was a candlelight vigil at the boat club last night.

Doesn't that just rip your heart into pieces? I have ZERO sympathy for that woman and I hope she rots in prison (she is currently out on $1.5 million bond). She has taken no responsibility and has shown no remorse. She was going so fast through the parking lot that she went 25 feet INTO THE BUILDING before her car stopped. And that was after she'd hit a parked car shortly beforehand. I am simply devastated for those kids and families that not only were injured, but there to witness it! There is no coming back from that kind of trauma. 

Okay, I've thought about it so much this week that I need to move on for now. It's horrific and I can't stop thinking about that poor mom who lost two of her kids and now has a huge recovery ahead--both her and her 11-year old son had severe injuries.

I thought I had a lot more photos than this, but that's probably because of all the photos I took for the baseball team. Speaking of baseball, Eli decided to leave the team. He'd been playing baseball since he was three years old! However, the varsity coach kind of sucked all the fun out of the game for him (and several other kids) and he decided he'd rather spend the time at work to save up for a car. Eli said it had been on his mind non-stop and he put a lot of thought into whether he wanted to continue playing; once he made the decision and told his coach, he said it felt like a huge relief. He seems happier and his mood is so much better! I didn't realize how much it had been affecting him.

Anyway, here are a few photos that have been hanging out on my camera roll...

When Luke and Riley were at Brian's one weekend, we went over there to see them. They have this play equipment that hangs in a doorway (a swing and these rings below). I was trying to describe to Riley how she could probably do a backflip with the rings and I wasn't doing a very good job explaining... so I decided to demonstrate for her, hahaha. I hadn't tried it since I was a kid, and I had no idea if I was going to fall and break my back, but I managed to do it. And it was so fun! Riley took this picture of me while I was hanging upside down.

The kids were leaving the following day for Texas (just a short trip with Brian) so there wasn't time for me to take them to Barnes & Noble for Luke's birthday tradition. I am going to take him the next time they are here, but in the meantime, I had gotten him a book that I was planning to buy since before he was ever even conceived. It's a book by Dr. Seuss called "My Book About Me" (Amazon affiliate link), and it's a fill-in-the-blank book for kids to fill in. My parents got one for each of my siblings and me, which we filled out when we were about six or seven years old. Luke just turned seven, so I thought it was a good time. (This is seriously a fantastic gift for a 5-7 year old! I still have the one I filled out. Maybe I'll dig it out and post some of it.)

Here, Luke was starting to fill out the book. I noticed he was writing with his left hand and I said, "Luke, I didn't know you were left-handed! Do you always write with that hand?" and he said, "No, I can write with both hands" and he switched to his right hand and continued. BAHAHA.

Meanwhile, Riley took each of us (Jerry, my mom, Brian, and me) upstairs individually to 1) style our hair, and 2) make us a name tag. I wish I had gotten a picture of my hair! She put a lot of spray-in conditioner in it and slicked it down on my head and put a bow on top. It was... not my usual look. Ha! Usually, when I tell the kids I have to leave, Riley jumps in my arms and asks me to stay longer. This time, I said, "Riley, we are going to have to head out in a few minutes" and she replied with zero hesitation, "You need to take out that bow!" The kids are SO funny; I wish they didn't grow so much between each visit.

Jerry and I went to Goodwill one day and we shopped around by ourselves before meeting up at the checkout area. I saw this Friends mug (what an awkwardly shaped mug!) and I knew I *had* to buy it for Jerry without him seeing it. I tucked it under some clothes in my cart and then totally forgot about it until we were at the checkout. It went something like this:

Jerry: "You got the mug!"

Me: "What do you mean?" (realizing then that I meant to hide it and forgot)

Jerry: "I was going to buy that Friends mug and hide it from you!"

Me: "That's what I was doing for you!"

So, we had each seen it and Jerry just left it on the shelf until he could go back for it without me seeing. When he went back, it was gone. Because it was in my cart, haha. I think I'm going to plant some cat grass in it.

Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched? ;)

Could Duck look any more evil?

Jerry was DYING to get his hands on one of these ghost trap popcorn buckets from the release of the new Ghostbusters movie. As soon as they were available, he drove to a theater about an hour away in order to buy one. Then he went back two more times to get the smaller sized ones to send to Luke and Riley. They sold out super fast, but he managed to get them.

Jerry, Eli, and I went to see Ghostbusters. Unlike Star Wars, I actually do like Ghostbusters (nothing like Jerry does, but I think it's a cute nostalgic movie). 

My dad asked if I'd make a pecan pie for Easter. I've made them a million times--my dad loves my pecan pies--but something SO ODD happened this time. I have no idea why, but it puffed up during baking(?!) and the texture was totally off. I am a self-admitted terrible baker, but I make a killer pecan pie; this was so strange! My dad said it still tasted good though.

I finally made something with the Friends fabric that I'd gotten. I had planned to make Jerry and I matching pajama pants, but I thought this would be more fun. These are backrest pillows and they're SO comfy. Jerry and I don't have a headboard, so they are nice for sitting up in bed (usually we just stack a bunch of pillows on top of each other). 

I've been on a really good sleep schedule (lights out at 9:00 pm) and it's been working out great, BUT I wake up way too early. I honestly think my body only wants six hours of sleep because it's practically impossible to sleep longer than that. So, I usually end up waking up at around 3:00 and I try to stay in bed until 4:00. So, I've started reading my Kindle before I even step foot out of bed.

Way back in the late 90's, I read a book called "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin De Becker (Amazon affiliate link) after seeing him discuss the book on Oprah. It was SO fascinating to me and I carried a lot of the into with me throughout the years. The book was partly the reason I chose psychology for my major in college. I don't know what prompted me to want to read it again, but I started it and was sucked in immediately. It's about listening to your intuition and how the tiniest details can predict someone's behavior. I highly recommend that everyone read this--especially women.

When Jerry and I were at Goodwill, I saw a pair of pants with this tag and I thought the tag was so cute! I've been saving some tags to put on a bag one of these days, so I've been paying more attention to them. I didn't want to buy these just for the tag, so I at least took a picture.

I made some serious progress putting my jeans quilt back together. I finished the quilt top and I love how it looks. However, I started quilting it and it looks terrible now. I am just not cut out to be a quilter! I thought the hardest part would be sewing through the thick layers but that wasn't a problem at all--I've sewn through much more than this before. However, the quilt top sort of bunches up while I'm sewing (even with a walking foot) and after reading about it, I think it's because the backing was too taut. So, it's going to look homely, but that's what I love so much about denim--I think it looks best when it's kind of messy. So this quilt is going to have character! ;) I'll post a pic when it's totally done.

When I was feeling sad after hearing about the drunk driver, I looked at a bunch of "eye bleach" memes (basically, really sweet and wholesome memes/quotes to make me smile). I really liked this little story:

I took this picture of Chick yesterday--he was SO out of it. He's so chill; the polar opposite of Duck, who has as much anxiety as I do. Peas in a pod, me and Duck.

Duck was digging through some things I have in my night table, and I grabbed my phone to take a video of him. As soon as I started it, he sensed I was there and then leapt toward me to check out my phone. It shows his "curious" look very well.

I found this neck tie at Goodwill and I loved it. I bought it in order to use the fabric on something--haven't decided what yet--because it was too unique not to. I love that a 13-year old boy designed it for the Save the Children Fund organization.

That's all I've got for now. Have a great weekend! xo

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Wednesday Weigh-In: Week 182

I figured I'd better do a weigh-in today, since it's been three weeks. Yikes! The time has been going by so fast and it feels hard to keep up. I've really been enjoying the time away from my blog, though. It hasn't really been for any reason other than my needing a mental break from it, and it's definitely helped.

I wish I could say that my weight has gone down a significant amount since my last weigh-in, but I definitely wasn't expecting it to. Nothing has changed as far as my diet goes (which isn't a good thing) and I want to create better habits. This month has been kind of crazy and I need to do a better job at handling changes to routine.

As far as today, I was at 145.2, which is down only a little from the 146 that I think I was at three weeks ago. Since my habits haven't changed, I can't expect my weight to ;)

The boys on Eli's baseball team asked if I would take pictures at their games again this year, and that made me feel good! So of course I agreed. It's a surprisingly big time commitment, though. I usually take about 250 photos during the game (I do a lot of bursts so that I can have fun action photos), and then I have to upload them to my computer so I can weed out the ones that didn't turn out or have multiple similar ones. (I usually narrow it down to about 100.) Then I try to make sure I have photos of each kid. And then I upload them to a shared album so the kids can download what they want. I really enjoy doing it for them, knowing that they are excited to have them.

Despite the changes in routine, I haven't been eating *too* terribly. I haven't had any sweets/desserts at all (and since I don't crave sugar right now, I'm not going to chance it for a cookie or something). I recently bought a cookbook called Vegan Asian by the blogger at The Foodie Takes Flight (Jeeca Uy). [I've been buying cookbooks over the last year or so rather than using recipe sites--there are just SO MANY ads on sites that it takes way too long to simply check out the ingredients in a recipe to decide if I even want to make it.] I'm glad I got this book because it's absolutely amazing. My favorite cookbook for sure. I've made several recipes and all have turned out delicious.

The only problem is that many ingredients aren't exactly healthy. There is a lot of sodium (mainly from soy sauce) and a lot of oil (for stir-frying). Also, I've been eating portions that are definitely bigger than they should be.

I'd like to get back to not eating after 7:00 pm (that is the biggest help when I want to lose weight, I've discovered), but it's nearly impossible with Eli's baseball schedule. His games are usually at 4:00 (sometimes as far as 45 minutes away) and a lot of them are double headers. So we don't get home until 8:30 or 9:00!

As far as exercise, I haven't been doing my morning runs anymore and I would really like to start them again. The reason I stopped was that I injured my knee in the stupidest way possible. I was cleaning out the garage and I was trying to remove a drawer from a small nightstand. I bought it at a garage sale ages ago with the plan to refinish it; but when I tried to sand off the paint, I discovered that it must be some sort of magic paint because it will NOT come off. I gave up.

Anyway, the drawer was stuck and I couldn't, for the life of me, get it to open and come out. (I had an idea of how to use the stand without the drawers and I wanted to try it.) I grabbed a hammer and started trying to hit the drawer outward--it was budging a tiny bit. After several hard hits, it was finally starting to come loose. I pulled back the hammer and swung really hard, thinking that final blow would get the drawer out.

Well, the hammer smashed right through the drawer's bottom (which was just thin plywood) and landed right on my goddamn kneecap! The pain was blinding and I couldn't even move. I was really worried that I shattered the bone--how could a direct blow from a hammer NOT?--but I wound up with a very deep bruise and a very painful knee. It hurt to even move my foot for about a week, which is when I stopped my morning runs.

I should have started right back up but so much time had passed and "one more day" wouldn't make a difference (story of my life). And now it's weeks later. Someone sent me a link to a challenge for a run streak in May, which is mental health awareness month. You can sign up (kind of like you would a race) and it's a virtual challenge to run (or walk) one mile a day for all of May.

I really like that idea! Since I'm passionate about mental health and I would like to get back to running, it seems to be a good fit for me. I haven't made the commitment yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to.

I met a friend at the Metropark on Sunday for a six-mile walk. She'd chosen the last place we walked so it was my turn to choose. I found myself feeling nostalgic for the path where I used to do a lot of my long runs with Jessica (and even by myself). It turned out to be a bad day for that particular park (it was flooded in a lot of areas because we've had so much rain) but seeing people out running on the path gave me a little pang of longing to do it too. I find it so inspiring--whether the person is very fit and fast or out of shape and slow, it inspires me all the same.

I know I've said this a few times now, but I'm going to make my goal for the week to be a couple of runs--not just around the block, but at least a couple of miles. If it's too hard, I'll take walk breaks, but I think I can manage a couple of miles if I run slowly enough ;) ALSO, I'm going to post a Friday Night Photos before my photos get out of hand!

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Denim Refashion

Like I said yesterday, I have been working on some fun projects lately--mostly sewing. It all started because I wanted to get better at sewing zippers. When I sew, I usually just alter clothes--I like to buy thrift store clothes and refashion them to my (quirky) taste. I rarely make clothes or put zippers on anything but now that I have room for my sewing stuff (I took over the spare bedroom when Noah moved out), I find that I want to use it more. I watched several YouTube videos for tips about zippers and then made a bunch of small things--mostly bags and pouches--to practice. 

I've been doing a ton of spring cleaning/organizing (even though it's still freezing cold here) and when I was organizing the "craft room", I decided I needed to make a large dent in all of the scraps of denim I have. When I am done with a pair of jeans for whatever reason, I cut them apart and use *every* piece in some way. However, since my weight hasn't gone super drastically up and down for the last couple of years, I haven't had to replace all of my jeans, hahaha. (Notice I said "super" drastically--it's certainly not at the point of being consistent yet.)

All of my denim scraps had been sitting around for a while, so after lots of inspiration from Pinterest, I came up with a couple of ideas to try. And I *love* how they turned out!

The first is a small purse that I started with the intention of making into a fanny pack. And it could be, if I change the strap on it, but I like it as an ordinary crossbody for now. I collected the seams from jeans that I'd cut up and I arranged them in rows.

I wanted to keep the whole purse in shades of light- to medium-blue (no dark denim) and I didn't have enough to do the front and back like that. Instead, I unrolled the hems from the legs, ironed them flat, and used them to piece together a patchwork back to the purse. I added little belt loops on the sides to hold the D-rings (for the strap) and a lining that I thought complimented it. A simple zipper on top. And I didn't want any pockets, inside or out, so that was easy.

It's the perfect size! It fits exactly what I need (including my Kindle, which I like to bring with me to appointments and basically anywhere that I might have a chance to read) without having space for random junk. This is one of my most favorite things I've ever made.

After that, I set to work on the bits and pieces that were literally just small scraps of denim. I wanted to make a large piece of fabric by cutting small squares and piecing them together in a grid (like I did ages ago with my denim quilt). I cut as many 2x2 squares as I could and hoped it would be enough to make a messenger bag. I needed the piece to be roughly 15 inches by 32 inches. I didn't do the math or anything--I just hoped that when I pieced them together, it would be at least that big.

It worked out *perfectly*. I didn't have one single spare square left and the finished measurement was 15.5 by 33 inches. Then I had to decide on what to line it with and I'd had a very large men's dress shirt in with my sewing stuff for a while (once in a while I'll buy clothes from Goodwill for the purpose of sewing later, if I like the fabric). I cut that up to use to for a lining fabric, and decided to leave the pockets on.

Sewing through a million layers of denim is HARD but the end result was worth it. I love this bag! I'm not sure what to do with it, being a messenger bag, but I'll figure it out because I want to use it.

And finally, as far as denim goes, I am putting my denim quilt back together. I took it apart last year with the intention of putting it together differently and then grew bored with working on it so I put it in the back of the closet. This is what it looked like before:

This is what the quilt looked like before

I have all the boring stuff done now (I *hate* cutting fabric) and now I am working on piecing it together. Basically, I just rearranged the squares, cut them smaller and I'm sewing them back together without the frayed edges on top. I had several pieces of denim where I was messing around with embroidery floss, so I cut those into squares too.

And as I'm piecing it back together, it looks like this:

I turned most of the squares to the wrong side for a different look. I want to quilt it rather than tie it when I'm done, but I have no idea how to do that!

I have some other projects as well, but I have to head to Eli's baseball game, so I'll save those for later!

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Eclipse

I was kind of excited to see the eclipse today! I'd been too scared to look at the one in 2017--the news made it sound like we would go blind instantly if we so much as opened our eyes outdoors--so I chose not to. But then several people were talking about how amazing it was and I wished I'd seen it. So, I decided I was for sure going to watch it today. Especially since we live very close to the totality path.

At around midnight last night, it occurred to me that I never got glasses so that I could look at it! Jerry had taken today off work (not for the eclipse, but it happened to work out that way) so he went out this morning on a mission to get glasses. Everywhere he went said they sold out weeks ago. He finally found some at a 7-11 about 35 minutes away, and they only had a few pairs they set aside in the back.

I debated driving to Luna Pier (or even riding my bike), which is a small nearby town--and the only place in Michigan that was in the totality path. However, Noah came over and said the traffic was INSANE everywhere. The line to get on the expressway was backed up for miles! So I figured I'd be happy with the 99.98% totality and avoid the traffic ;)

It was supposed to happen at about 3:12 pm, so we headed outside about 20 minutes beforehand. Jerry brought out his welding helmet from work and that actually worked much better than the cardboard glasses. We passed it back and forth, waiting for something exciting to happen, but I have to say, the eclipse was very underwhelming.

I found it more interesting to just look around us because the atmosphere seemed really eerie. It reminded me of the moments leading up to a tornado--where it looks like you're looking through a filter or something. And then it was jarring that the temperature dropped a LOT and it got super dark outside within minutes. I hadn't thought about the temperature dropping like that, but it makes sense when the sun is hidden!

While the whole thing didn't exactly live up to the hype, we had a good laugh--Jerry was trying to get selfies of us but we couldn't see anything with the helmet/glasses, so the pictures were all over the place.

Eli's baseball games have started and he plays 38 games(!) this season (two months). That is a LOT of baseball. I have to get ready to go to a game right now, but I've been working on some fun projects lately so I'll post pictures of those tomorrow. (Hold me to that!)

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