(Almost) Wordless

A packed day today--meal planning, cleaning the garage, and Eli's baseball game. Jerry and the kids are all off school/work tonight, so I'm hoping for a game or movie night.

I wrote a fun post yesterday, so I'm going to just make this an (almost) wordless post. I searched my photos for May 1st, and realized that it was exactly eight years ago that I met up with my Ragnar SoCal team in Indiana!

We ran the Ragnar in 2014, and then most of us met up a year later for a reunion at the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini Marathon. I would love to plan another reunion; seeing this picture makes me nostalgic. We had so much fun!

Bonnie, Thomas, Dean, Martha, Cat, Hilary, Paige, and me (missing Colleen, John, Tay, and Caitlin)

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(Almost) Wordless

It has been a long, exhausting, COLD day of baseball--from 8:00 until 5:45! We are all freezing cold right now, so I'm going to make some tortilla soup for dinner and get super cozy in my pajamas. So, instead of writing a post, I'll just post a few photos from this day (April 22) in the past...

2010- Donating blood as part of my 30 x 30 list (30 goals to accomplish by 30 years old). 

2012- My lifelong best friend Sarah (who now lives in Arizona) when she was pregnant with her first baby.

2017- When John and I visited Caitlin in Boston; we were FREEZING and I love this picture!

Naturally, I had to get a picture with this cookie truck ;)

2020- Our mama squirrel shortly before she had her babies. We have another pregnant one who comes around for her walnuts every day at the same time. I'm excited to see her babies!

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On This Day (March 5)

As I mentioned yesterday, I just needed a break from the blog. I've been super productive getting things done around the house, though! I'm going to do another (almost) wordless post today and then back to the grind tomorrow with Jerry's weigh-in.

Here are a few pictures from March 5 in previous years. March 5 apparently wasn't a very good day for taking photos, because I don't have many. And the ones I do have aren't super exciting!

Eli LOVED playing Army when he was little, and his creative mind saw these Sorry! game pieces as cannons.

Jessica and I had a 13-mile run on the schedule when we were marathon training, and it was a bummer we wouldn't get anything for running a half-marathon. So, I made some Runs for Cookies half-marathon "medals" out of paper and ribbon, haha.

This is just an aviator hat that I made for Luke--he was born three days later.

And this is Duck with his paper balls. He brings them over to his bowl, but as you can see, they don't really make it in there! He's patiently waiting for me to pick them up and throw them again.

Okay, I'm going to continue to work on spring cleaning and I'll write a "real" post tomorrow!

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On This Day (March 4)

I really need a mental health day (or two) from the blog right now, so I'm just going to do an (almost) wordless post today and possibly tomorrow. It's been a rough day So here are a few pictures from this day (March 4) in the past...

A note Jerry wrote on a Post-It and stuck it to my tea

Eli's first time getting his teeth cleaned at the dentist. He was SO excited for it! I love the way he's sitting, too.

Noah's first time as well... he wasn't nearly as excited, haha.

This was when Jerry and I were training for the Martian Half-Marathon in 2018

Okay, maybe I'll write tomorrow and maybe I'll just do another (almost) wordless post. Happy Saturday! :)

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(Almost) Wordless

Renee and I have been trying to get together for MONTHS, and even when we plan something weeks in advance, things come up and we've had to reschedule. Out of nowhere today, Renee texted and asked if today would work because they'd had a last-minute change of plans. It just so happens that Jerry has today off and we had nothing going on, so it worked out perfectly--just very last minute.

Anyway, my house is nowhere near clean enough to have people over, so I'm going to get to it now. I don't have a very recent picture of Renee, Dave, Jerry, and me, so I'll share an oldie but goodie :)

Warrior Dash in Joliet, IL in 2010

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(Almost) Wordless

I need a break from the blog today... so I'll just do my "Friday Night Photos" post tomorrow. For now, here's a picture from this date in 2008. This is one of my favorite pictures EVER. Noah and Eli had gotten into a bottle of baby powder while I was in the shower. There was powder ALL OVER the living room. I especially loved the look on Eli's face here, though:

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(Almost) Wordless: Random pic generator

I've got a busy day today, so I'd like to get my post ready before my friend Shannon is supposed to come over. We haven't seen each other since probably 2018(?!) so there is a lot to catch up on! I'm looking forward to seeing her, though.

I couldn't think of a photo for my (almost) wordless post today; then I figured out a system that made me want to sit and do this all day long, haha. When I moved my photos to my new computer from my old one, I renamed them all to a number (in chronological order, starting with 1 and ending around 43,000) to make things easier and more uniform.

To choose some truly random photos for this post, I went to Random.org (a random number generator), requested a number between 1 and 43,000, and then whatever number it gave me corresponded with the photo of that same number.

Soooo... these are completely random photos! It was hard to stop generating more and more because it was fun to see what came up.

Here, we were at my sister's house. She told the kids to pretend like they were sleeping for the photo.

This was obviously at a Tiger's game... see all the empty seats? Haha!

Big Mama was the first to really make use of the squirrel picnic table I made for the little buddies.

I had just gotten back from a (hot) run and Jerry was mowing the lawn. He saw me taking a selfie so he naturally had to act goofy.

Eli dressed up as Woody from Toy Story :)

Finally, I saved this for last because it's a huge coincidence... the number that came up was 4596. So, judging by the number, this picture was from a relatively long time ago. I don't know many kids with red hair, but I immediately recognized him as Bradley--my friend Shannon's son, who is just a month older than Eli. Shannon is the friend I am seeing today! I probably have less than five pictures of her kids in all 43,000+ photos. I just thought it was funny that her son's picture happened to be one of the randomly drawn ones on the day I'm going to see her for the first time in like 4-5 years.

We were just talking about how fast the kids grew up. We were pregnant at the same time with Eli and Bradley, and I cannot believe it's been over 17 years!

This was actually a really fun to post to work on. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

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(Almost) Wordless: On This Day

I'm not going to write a post today. I've had an exhausting day! But I grabbed a few pictures from previous years' January 21...

These are a couple of side-by-side pictures from my Runner's World photo shoot. My friend Stephanie took some pictures of the photographer taking pictures of me--it's kind of cool to see them side-by-side. The background was just a large white piece of paper (we did the shoot at my mom's house). The pictures on the right are two of the ones used in Runner's World.

 
Here is Jerry shoveling snow in swim trunks (2015):

And here is a picture of Big Mama (2020). Sadly, we haven't seen her for the last couple of years. She used to be at the door every single morning waiting for nuts, before any other squirrels, and one day she just stopped showing up.

But I'm pretty sure several of her babies are "regulars" now ;)

Have a good night!

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(Almost) Wordless

I wish I could come up with something--anything--to write today, but my mood is all over the place. I don't know if it's this new medication or if I'm just having a bad week. I'm feeling sad for no reason at all, having more anxiety than normal, and I just don't have motivation to do anything! I wrote out a to-do list and I am hoping to tackle it one thing at a time. So, I'm going to skip writing a post today and leave you with a couple of photos instead. And hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow!

For those of you that do the Wordle every day... this is how my day started. Sigh. So promising.

This was my mood by the time I got to the fourth or fifth guess...

Anyway, here are a couple of funnies to enjoy. Hopefully, I'll feel like writing tomorrow!

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The Shelves Are Painted!

I'm in a VERY bad mood today, so I'm just going to keep this (almost) wordless. I found out that my insurance will no longer cover my medication, and to pay out of pocket is over $300 per month! Even when I shopped around on the discounted pharmacies online, it was $350+. The timing couldn't be any worse, because my psychiatrist retired last month. I have an appointment to see a new one in his office later this month, but as of today, I'm out of my medication. I'm going to call the office tomorrow and see if there is anything they can do.

Anyway, I have been stressed about that all day long. I did manage to paint the shelves in the bathroom closet, though, which is a huge relief! I just can't wait for it to dry so that I can start moving things around and get organized again. My house has still been cluttered while I waited to finish the remodel.

The shelves are as simple as can be... I had plans of making them adjustable and with dividers, but one thing after another caused problems--namely, my jointer, my planer, and my router. So, I had to come up with different solutions to get things done and it took much longer than it should have. They aren't fancy, but they're functional. 

Just ask Duck, who jumped on them when the white oil-based paint was still drying. Sigh. Anyway, here is a picture. Hopefully I'll get pictures of the full bathroom soon! (You can only see about half of the closet here; to the left of the shelves is a space for hanging clothes.)

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(Almost) Wordless: Last one!

I am going to take one more day off of blogging. I just got home from visiting my group of high school friends; my friend Mike (along with his fiancé) was in town from NYC, and he invited us over to his sister's house for a get-together. The group does this every year, but I haven't been there since pre-COVID times! I was trying to find a few previous years' pictures, but I must not have labeled them, because I can't find them right now. But here is our group photo from today. I'll try to write a "real" post tomorrow!

 

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(Almost) Wordless Christmas Eve

I'm going to take a couple of days "off" from writing in order to spend some quality time with the fam. So I'll just share a photo or two!

These are a couple pictures of my favorite reaction to a gift I've given to one of the kids for Christmas.

Eli was five years old, and in school his teacher was reading the class a book from a series called Junie B. Jones. He LOVED the book and he asked for them for Christmas. I was able to find the whole series (with a little tote to hold them) on E-bay.

He was SO EXCITED to get them! It was his favorite gift that year, by far. I thought it was so funny that out of all the toys, he chose those books as his favorite. And on Christmas night, he wanted to sleep with his Junie B. Jones books next to him. Best reaction ever! <3

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(Almost) Wordless Friday

I just got home from a family get-together at my brother's house, and it's almost 9:00 PM. I had so much fun, but I also have a killer headache, so I'm going to save my "Friday Night Photos" post for tomorrow--there are some fun ones from today! Here is a teaser photo... hahaha

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(Almost) Wordless

I had another busy day working in the bathroom, and I'm exhausted! Jerry made beans and greens for dinner (which has become my most favorite comfort food) so I'm going to keep this "wordless" and just post a picture (or three).

I figured out a way to hang the hexagon cat shelf thing, so I hung that up in the bedroom today. I have the holes in it pointing downward--I'm going to add a shelf underneath so that the cats can jump down (or climb up) through the holes. They'll be able to go from shelf to shelf.

I painted the inside of it gray, but I still have to paint the outside of it; I just wanted to make sure I could hang it first!

There is a rectangular hole in the wall at the back of the hexagon that leads to the top of the closet in the bathroom. When it's done, I'll post photos of all of it so it'll make more sense!

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(Almost) Wordless

I'm not going to write a post today; I was tired of working on the bathroom, so I decided to work on the FUN part of the remodel project. I miss woodworking! A while back, I bought a solid oak dining room table on Facebook Marketplace for uber-cheap (I think it was $50?). It's been sitting in the garage, waiting for me to mill the boards, so I worked on that today. Now I have several pieces of really nice oak to make shelves with...

This was the second time I bought an oak table on FB Marketplace and milled the boards. To buy boards like these would be insanely expensive--roughly $50 per board, and I have six of them!

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Wordless

Sums up the last three days... or months. 😂

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Wordless

I'm going to take today off from blogging (I'm just exhausted--this week is catching up with me!). So here is a photo that I took on this day in 2011. That was the year I started my blog and the Noah and Eli were 7 and 5 years old in this picture. They are now 18 and 16!

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Wordless (with a comparison picture)

I am SO tired today for some reason, so I'm going to make this a wordless post. (Well, as wordless as I get.) I went for a long walk with my reader-turned-friend Jen today, and it was fun to see how different we looked since the last time we met up (December 2020). We've both lost quite a bit of weight since then...

 I will write tomorrow!

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Wordless

I have written SO much this week and I've had an exhausting day. So I'm just posting a photo from our cross country meet this morning. I love this particular race--there is a huge hill! And this fun fact about Robin Williams was from late September, but it made me so angry for him. I would be furious if someone did that.

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Wordless

(I know the point of these posts is to be "wordless", but as the wordy person I am, I at least want to explain!)

I've had a rough emotional day today, so I'm going to skip writing. I want to spend the evening finishing up the drywall in the bathroom and then follow it with a comfort-food dinner and read some of my book.

Since I posted my recent photos yesterday, here is a photo of the day we picked out Joey from the animal shelter in February 2015 :)  (Can you believe he's about 8-1/2 years old now?!)

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