Master Bathroom Makeover Reveal: FINALLY!

Finally--I have bathroom photos! As you know, this was part of the nightmare that was 2022. I finally took the time to take "after" pictures and put together this "before and after" post for the unplanned bathroom makeover remodel. I'll try to sum the project up in a nutshell long post with fifty billion pictures.

Jerry was going away for the weekend at the end of July, so I thought I'd surprise him by getting rid of the carpet in our bedroom and replacing it with the same luxury vinyl planking we have throughout the house. We had extra boxes of it and it's a simpler project than you might think, so I knew I could knock it out in a weekend. Ha! Last words.

Just getting started with tearing out the carpet

I was excited to pull up the carpet and get started. I even took "before" photos, thinking it was just going to be the flooring I would be replacing. Well, when I got to the side of my bedroom that shares a wall with the master bathroom, I discovered what would become a huge headache for the rest of 2022. The shower was just on the other side of the wall, and apparently, it had been leaking for a while. The floor was rotted and there was quite a bit of water damage. (I couldn't see how far it went, but I assumed it was under the entire shower.)

I consulted my older brother, Brian, because he's been doing construction (not as a profession, but more as a serious hobby) since his late teens. He made it sound like it wasn't a huge deal, that I could just tear out the flooring under the shower and replace just those couple of pieces. However, I didn't like that the floor in my bedroom was "wavy". It felt uneven, and after pulling up the carpet, I could see why.

Below is the wall that we had to tear out. The door on the left is a walk-in closet, the little hole in the wall is the access panel for the shower (you can get to the pipes that way) and the door on the right is to the bathroom. You can see the water damage was directly where the shower was.

Brian said we could use some sort of leveler product that basically fills in the low spots on the floor, but I decided I wanted to just redo the entire floor the "right" way--using sheets of plywood instead of particle board. And I wanted to do the entire bathroom and bedroom.

And since we were going to be pulling up the subfloor, it was going to mean lots of reconstruction--so I might as well give it a makeover, too! I knew I wanted to move the shower to the opposite corner of where it was. We used to have a large corner tub there but we pulled it out because we never used it. Actually, here is a (very cringy!) photo of it when we first moved in:

So, the space was pretty large and empty. I figured we could move the shower there (especially since the pipes were already there from the tub) and then I could build a small closet where the old shower used to be.

We tore out the old shower, as well as the wall that divides the bathroom and bedroom. The floor damage was right under it, so it was a lot easier to take out the wall to redo the floor. Then we spent a gazillion hours pulling out staples and ripping out the subfloor that was glued down.

I was SO excited to get rid of this old shower!

Jerry tearing apart the shower (well, with a saw, haha)

I kind of panicked after that--we didn't have a floor in our bedroom or bathroom! There was insulation and then crawl space. 

Jerry fell through into the crawl space, and popped up with a small lever tool I'd lost forever ago!

When chipping away at glue and particle board, the dust gets EVERYWHERE.

You know, in the Three Little Pigs story, they never did have someone build a trailer. A house held together with glue and nails like this, well, it ain't coming apart for ANYTHING. While remodeling the house, nails have been the bane of my existence. After drywall dust, of course.

I was picturing spiders and raccoons and stuff all coming up through the floor. We spent the next few days replacing the subfloor so that we could at least bring our mattress back in the room. I'd been sleeping on the couch and Jerry was working nights--sleeping in Eli's room while Eli was at school.

I don't remember the order we did everything, but basically, I had to remove the old floor, add more insulation, install new subfloor. Build a dividing wall between the bedroom and bathroom. Build a closet. Install a bathtub/shower combo with surround wall and all the drywall. Install new lights and a new bathroom fan. Build a "cat hangout" on top of the bathroom closet with a hole that leads into the bedroom. Install new trim and a new bathroom door. Prime and paint everything. I did all of this while Jerry was at work or sleeping, and he did all of the floor planking.

Privacy is overrated.

We slept like this for a long time! The bathroom was the priority, not the bedroom.

No shower at all meant that we had to share with the boys. My 17- and 18-year old teen boys. Gross!

My first "wall"--hey, you have to start somewhere, right?! This would become the closet wall later.

Installing the new tub/shower combo in the back right corner.

I built another wall! This one was to separate the bathroom and bedroom again--yay.

Duck insisted on helping me with the cat hangout.

The cat hangout is on top of this closet--I put plywood on the top, drywall on the underside (inside the closet) and then carpet on top of the plywood--for the cats to scratch (it's a scratchy kind of carpet)

Cat hangout. Since this photo, I've cut out a hole in that back wall that leads to my bedroom--there are shelves so the cats can climb up and down. I'll show pictures of this in my bedroom reveal. 

I've also made over the bedroom, but I still have to take after photos. I chose the color black for the walls of both the bedroom and bathroom, and I was SO unsure about doing something that drastic, but I absolutely love how it turned out. 

The only thing I still need to get done in the bathroom is to install a bifold door on the closet. I wasn't sure if I wanted to, so I've been thinking about it. After seeing these pictures, though, I decided to go ahead and hang it--if only to hide all of the junk we have in there!

I also don't have the clothes hampers in the closet for the "after" pictures--I either need to buy narrower ones so that they fit side by side (no matter how I maneuver them, the pair I have won't both fit under the shelves) or just keep one in there and the other in my closet or other part of the bathroom.

Anyway, here are a few side-by-side pictures that I tried to take from the same angle before and after. 

This first side-by-side is only the bathroom BEFORE (in the point of view from the doorway and then opposite the doorway. And this was before-before. I'd since painted it and removed the textured ceiling, painted the vanity, etc. But this is the general idea. (The toilet was to the left of the dresser in the back.)

And here are some from before and now:

This is the vanity before I painted it a few years ago:

And now--everything looks the same, pretty much, except for the wall color!

I can't even describe how much space we've created in our closet by moving the heavier shirts (sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets) to the bathroom closet and hanging them up. In our bedroom closet, we don't have any hangers--I started folding everything after reading Marie Kondo's book. It keeps everything super tidy in there, but the larger items take up so much space! I'll post photos of the closet when I do the photos of the bedroom, too.

Even though this whole thing was a total nightmare that lasted way too long, I'm very happy with how it turned out! The bathroom makes so much more sense now (odd way of putting it, but not sure how else to word it). The black doesn't  make everything seem smaller and too dark. The new lights I put in are plenty bright and having the white accents keeps the black from being too claustrophobic.

The cats LOVE their cat hangout on the closet--Chick and Duck can always be found up there when I'm showering--I can see their eyes watching me, hahaha. 

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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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Three Things Thursday: Eli!

Today, I thought I'd change things up a bit and do a "three things" interview with Eli! I keep my boys' lives pretty private here on the blog (unless they give me permission to share something) so I was happy he agreed. These are about as deep as Jerry's "deep thoughts" posts, however---hahaha! 

What are your three favorite TV shows?

1. Shameless
2. Breaking Bad
3. Psych

What are your three favorite pastimes?

1. Lifting weights
2. Fishing
3. Scrolling social media

What are your three favorite foods?

1. Pizza
2. Steak
3. Chicken wings

What are your three favorite things to talk about?

1. Working out (lifting weights)
2. Baseball
3. Fishing

What are three things that make you laugh?

1. Movies (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Bad News Bears)
2. Things my friends talk about
3. When the pets act crazy

What are three things on your bucket list?

1. Skydiving
2. Bench more than 400 pounds
3. Catch a fish bigger than myself

What are three things you are most proud of?

1. My strength
2. Playing baseball
3. Fishing

What are three things you like most about yourself?

1. My hair
2. My strength
3. My skills (baseball, lifting, golf, etc.)

What are your favorite articles of clothing?

1. My hat
2. My glasses
3. Sweatshirts

What are your three favorite memories?

1. Going to Virginia Beach during a hurricane
2. Catching a muskie at my grandparents' house
3. Going to Hilton Head

Hurricane during our vacation to Virginia Beach

What are your three favorite school subjects?

1. History
2. Science
3. Gym

What are three foods you cannot stand?

1. Tomatoes
2. Mushrooms
3. Mayonnaise

What are your three most memorable gifts you've received?

1. 13x13 Rubik's Cube
2. An iPhone
3. A laptop computer

A 13x13 Rubik's Cube

What are your three favorite animals?

1. Squirrels
2. Otters
3. Ferrets

What are your three favorite things to do with your family?

1. Go out to eat
2. Go on vacation
3. Have family gatherings with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins

Eli is not much for words, but clearly you can see his favorite things are fishing, baseball, and weight lifting ;)  Honestly, though, Eli is SUCH a great "kid" (I call him a kid even though he's 17). He's the kind of kid that you want your kids to be friends with or your daughter to date. He reminds me a lot of Jerry in that way. I wish kids could stay little forever! 

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Wednesday Weigh-In: Week 88

Oh my gosh, you guys, this was so much worse than I ever anticipated. Remember last week, how I was sick with (what I thought was) COVID, and it was also my birthday? Well, I said I was going to skip the scale that day for those reasons--not necessarily valid reasons, but excuses nonetheless.

I had hoped that I would eat really well and get back to good habits and then by the time today's weigh-in came along, I'd be back on my way to my goal weight range. Since all I seem to be doing is gaining weight recently, I knew it was a good possibility--but I had no idea just how much!

Let me just say, I *really* don't want to post this here and I most likely won't read any comments on this post. I feel stunned and not at all happy with myself. I'm horribly embarrassed. And how is it even possible to gain so much in just two weeks?

But I promised myself I'd post it. No matter what. So here goes...

I was at 153.0 this week, which is a gain of 8.8 pounds in two weeks! I feel every pound of it, too. It's not just "water weight" (some of it, maybe, but my jeans are very, very tight). This is a legit weight gain.

I debated whether to list any possibly influences because I don't want them to sound like excuses. I certainly do make excuses sometimes. But I'm also the first to own up to the problem when I know I've been overeating. So, here are some possibilities that may have contributed to this gain:

1) A new medication. I don't think this is the reason because my medication isn't known for weight gain and I was gaining weight long before I started it.

2) Snacking at night. It's SUCH a bad habit that I'm having a very hard time breaking. Today, my month-long challenge starts where I can only eat at the dining room table with NO distractions. I can guarantee that I will probably stop snacking altogether this month because of that rule. 

3) Sweets. I've gone back to eating sweets again, which is super frustrating. I didn't crave them AT ALL and I was totally fine not eating them. Then, when Jerry and I went out to Chili Mustard Onions (a vegan restaurant in Detroit), the hostess bought us dessert. She was being super kind, so I felt obligated. I ate it and it was delicious! Ever since then, I've been unable to get back to not eating sweets.

My sweets haven't been too horrible, though--I usually make Cookie Dough Dip. While it's not healthy, it could be much worse! Still, though, I never stick with a small portion.

4) I stopped having my usual breakfast and lunch (which were loaded with fiber and micronutrients). Instead, I skip breakfast and lunch and then just eat way too much in the evening; or, I eat junky stuff during the day instead of breakfast and lunch. My "usual" breakfast and lunch are both cold, and since the cold isn't exactly my friend in February, I may need to change this up to warm food.

5) I have started eating tofu and seitan and things like that instead of what I ate in the beginning (lots of whole grains, beans, and veggies). The more I explore vegan ingredients and cooking, the more I enjoy the food! So eating chick peas is boring compared to eating tofu. I can find lower-calorie ways to prepare tofu, which is probably what I'm going to have to do. And maybe I'll make a rotation of protein products each week: tofu, seitan, soy curls, and beans, mostly. By doing that, I won't rely on my favorites (tofu, seitan, and soy curls) so much. They aren't unhealthy, but they are so good that I eat too much. I'm much mess likely to overeat chick peas!

6) More veggies! I NEED to get back to eating more vegetables. I was roasting them frequently but once I got into more tofu and less beans, my veggies kind of started waning as well. So, I'm not getting nearly enough fiber.

7) I've had a terrible 2023 so far. It's been one thing after another--I wish I could write about everything on my blog so it could make more sense (I really despise when people are cryptic like this), but I like to maintain people's privacy. So, just know that I've been having a lot going on in my private life that has been extremely overwhelming, stressful, and even depressing.

8) I haven't been doing meal planning and grocery shopping like I used to. I like knowing exactly what I'm going to be making for dinner so that I can get things prepped and ready during the day in order to make it easier when it's time to make dinner. A few days ago, I made several batches of sauces to put in the freezer. I told Jerry about my "grain bowl" go-to I used to make: pick a grain (barley, rice, farro, millet, etc.) + protein (seitan, tofu, beans, soy curls, etc.) + vegetables + sauce. It's super easy to prep everything ahead of time so it can just be thrown together any time.

Okay, well, that's a good start as to my thoughts about this weight gain. It will be VERY interesting to see what my weight is next week, assuming I stick with this eat-at-the-table-only challenge. It would be great if it helped me to break the snacking habit!

Well, there it is. There *I* am, extremely vulnerable and honest. And kind of mortified. I never predicted this!

Some upcoming things I have to look forward to and would like to be near my goal weight for:

1) Going to Illinois to dog-sit for my sister's basset hounds. I'll be there for about five days.

2) The 10K race with Nathan. I want to be in shape and have it not feel extremely difficult.

3) A friend is coming to visit in May and I have a couple of interesting things I'd like to do--but I want to be in shape to do them.

4) If we go up north to Jeanie's this summer, I'd like to be at my goal. The last time I was there, I was losing weight and I swore I'd be at my goal weight the next time I went.

And there you have it. Weighing in after 88 weeks. Gaining nearly 10 pounds in two weeks. Feeling disappointed in myself and embarrassed. Feel hopeful that I can nip the snacking with this February challenge!

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Jerry Loses His Dad Bod: Week 3

I feel like I should feel bad that I get a sense of relief that it's Jerry's weigh-in day and not mine, haha. Of course, mine is tomorrow, so there isn't much difference. But when writing today's post, I have a bit of a relief tingle in my belly.

I do feel bad that I wasn't very helpful this week as far as Jerry's diet goes. I was sick for a few miserable days this week, so I didn't cook. I haven't been cooking the best foods and I've yet to make and stick with a meal plan. Why is meal planning so hard?! It seems like I spend so much time writing things out, going grocery shopping, and prepping food, only to learn that nobody is going to be here for dinner or that they just ate something else after work/school.

Jerry keeps telling me just to make whatever I want to make, and if nobody else wants it or they eat otherwise, that's not my fault. My mom guilt is always high ;)

Anyway, back to Jerry's week of working on losing his dad bod. He said yesterday that he knew he wasn't going to do good on the scale today. And while it wasn't terrible, he didn't lose any weight:

He was at 192.0, which is a gain of 0.2 pounds from last week. I'd say that's no big deal! (Although, I also know how a little gain like that can turn into more and more until they add up to 25 pounds.)

His waist measurement stayed the same at 34.5 inches but his body fat percentage went up by 0.5% (from 23.3% last week).

I can't help but feel at least partially responsible! It was my idea to have him do this publicly, so I could have been more helpful.

Since I'm starting a challenge for February (eating ONLY at the dining room table with ZERO distractions), I think it's going to be easier to help him. I'm definitely not going to want to snack if I have to sit at the table to do it, so I'll likely be in the mood to prepare an extra good, filling dinner. When Jerry eating a bigger dinner at home, he tends to eat less at work.

Okay, I asked Jerry to write his thoughts about this week, so I'll hand it over to him:

Todays weigh in was a little disappointing but I'm not going to shy away from my shortcomings. At this point I figured I would've been down a lot more than this. In the past it seemed like I would lose a lot faster but not this time. It's been a struggle. I know where I go wrong and I'm trying to experiment with different eating habits. 

WRONGS: 

- Snacking. When Katie and I are just hanging out I tend to snack. It can be worse when everyone is asleep and I am watching a show alone in the living room. There have been times where I've been aware of what I was doing and stopped and other times I just can't resist the urge. It's a difficult habit to break. 

- Fruits and vegetables... not enough. I've had more than I normally have but I feel like I need more. 

- Exercise. I need to put more of a solid effort in figuring out what I should be doing here as opposed to just saying "I'll figure it out tomorrow". 

RIGHTS: 

- I've been downing the water. No problem getting that in. 

- Katie and I have been talking about just eating better overall. Better, overall nutritious meals that are smaller in portion. We've both admitted we are aware of the portion sizes increasing in our meals and that they've come to lack some of the nutrition we need. 

Overall, I'm feeling better... even though the scale isn't saying that. I know that I can do better and I'm making an effort to do that. Being more conscious of what I'm eating or what I'm doing helps me in knowing what I'm doing right or wrong and that is helping me to make improvements.

It sounds like he knows what's going on and what he'd like to change, so hopefully I can be a better help this week! Wish me luck for tomorrow ;)  Hopefully I can make it through Day 1, hahaha.

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A Unique Challenge for February

Challenges, goals, challenges, goals... many of you are probably thinking, "Katie, will you EVER learn?! Finish the goals you already started before setting new ones!"

Well, I can just blame bipolar, right? ;)  Seriously, though, this isn't anything major--and it's just for a month. February. I deliberately picked the shortest month of the year for this!

In pinpointing my snacking habits and why I'm having such a hard time breaking the bad habits, I came up with a solution that I am 100% certain will work. The problem is that I have to be 100% compliant, haha.

When the kids were little, we used to sit down for dinner (almost) every evening at the dining room table and eat together as a family. As the kids got older, we started watching TV while eating, and then eating at separate times that are convenient for each of us, and then the worst--eating in our bedrooms.

Once in a while I notice my kids carry a huge pile of dishes out of their bedrooms to the kitchen and it infuriates me--if they're going to eat in there, at the VERY LEAST they need to put their dishes away immediately! But honestly, we shouldn't be eating in our bedrooms at all.

I've also gotten to the point where I feel like I need to multitask 100% of the time, which includes eating. Eating just for the sake of eating seems so--boring? unproductive?--to me. I can't imagine myself snacking at night if I literally just sat down at the table for a snack. No phone, no book, no TV, nothing. I wouldn't want to eat!

Soooo... you can see where this is leading. For the month of February, I'm going to challenge myself to eat ONLY at the table and with ZERO distractions. I can eat whenever and whatever I want, sticking with my usual vegan diet, but it must be eaten at the table and with no distractions.

This isn't anything profound, I know. It's discussed in all of the "intuitive eating" and "non-diet" type books. I'm not doing this for any reason other than to hopefully get a jumpstart on breaking the bad snacking habit. Will I continue to do this forever? Ha! I will be pleasantly surprised if I make it through three days.

My only exceptions will be for ice (because I'm obsessed with chewing ice and I literally cannot fathom giving it up) and for tea at night. (Oh, and water.) I'm hoping to replace my snacking with a good cup of hot tea. (Definitely not the same I know, but I can dream.)

The only other exception I can think of would be is if I'm eating with other people--if we get together with Dave and Renee, for example, we might snack while playing Euchre. But I can only foresee that situation occurring maybe once or twice.

I asked Eli if he'd like to try it, too, because he's notorious for eating in his bedroom. I picture this to be even harder for him than it is for me! I'd like to think of an award for him if he does it--he does best with an incentive. Remember I offered him $365 if he could go a year without pop? (He was super addicted to it.) He did it! So, maybe he'll surprise me. 

Mostly, though, I want an incentive for MYSELF. Yes, it's childish; I'm an adult and I should do what's right whether I get anything out of it or not. But this is going to be one of the hardest challenges I've ever tried. So, I'll have to think about it tomorrow and then decide what my incentive will be before I begin on February 1st. Maybe we should start a pool of how long I'll actually last on this one ;)

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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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Late Replies

I'm having a "down" day today--my anxiety has been really bad recently--so I just thought I'd share some wisdom from an old friend, Adam. I saw this on Instagram the other day and it reminded me SO MUCH of me. I am absolutely terrible about getting back to people in a timely manner (if at all), no matter whether it's texts, emails, phone calls, or comments on social media.

I carry around guilt all the time because I know I have months of emails in my inbox, texts that I've been meaning to reply to (I'm the world's slowest texter, so I usually wait until I'm on my computer and I can text easily from there), and comments that I can remember reading weeks or months ago with the intention of replying. By then, it's awkwardly late!

Adam and I were very close friends in our teens. He's always been super smart and driven, and I guess I can't say that I'm surprised he became pretty famous among the psychology/business world.

Funnily enough, I've not read any of his books because they just aren't the kinds of books that interest me! But I like to read his thoughts on social media--aside from being incredibly smart, he has a lot of wise thoughts as well. Like I said, this one in particular spoke to me:

In a twist of irony, I have an email from Adam in my inbox that's probably a year and a half old now, and I honest-to-God have planned to reply when I set aside time to focus on a response. (This is what I often tell myself and then I get overwhelmed and procrastinate.) I will just remind him in my reply that it's quality, not speed, that matters. Hahaha.

I know I've said this before, but if you've emailed me and I haven't replied, it's NOT personal; I literally just get overwhelmed and I have every intention of writing a thoughtful, personal response. It just might take a (long) while. This is something I would love to work on, but it's overwhelming just to think about where to start!

I'm glad I'm not the only one, though--I searched for memes to lighten this up and found that there are a ton of people who do the same thing I do. Most of the time, I reply to something mentally right when I open it, but then I forget to go back and actually type the reply!

Anyway, I'm going to work on cleaning my house really well today because my friend Shannon is coming over tomorrow--and she hasn't been here since I remodeled the whole thing. It needs a good cleaning!

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Friday Night Photos #102

I don't have a lot of photos, but a mishmash of some random stuff. Today, I spent nearly all day finishing up the little books I made for Luke and Riley for Christmas. I know, Christmas was a month ago! But I still had some pages to fill out and I hadn't seen them for Christmas (Noah was pretty sick). I *must* get these to the kids this weekend. I'm thrilled with how they turned out!

Someone asked me to share more about them, so I'm going to write a separate detailed post about the whole thing--a tutorial. But for now, here are a few fun things from their books:

 

It's easier to imagine how it works when you look at the sides (the tutorial will show more)

I needed to come up with some ideas for the pages and I decided to get creative with the program that I use to edit photos. Usually I just resize pictures and maybe brighten them if they are too dark, but I played around some more today to get fun pictures for their books...

Luke likes a Super Mario Bros. game and I played it with him. The cats were my favorite!

Luke wants to be a pilot when he grows up, like his dad. Photo credit: @pilotpatrick on Instagram. He posts a ton of (photoshopped) photos like this. I just grabbed one of his and edited it for Luke. (If you, @pilotpatrick, happen to see this, I'd be happy to remove it at your request!) But check out his Instagram if you'd like some fun male eye-candy ;)

Riley wants to be a nurse like her mom. Becky worked as an RN before she became a stay-at-home mom.

This one is my favorite. Riley is OBSESSED with unicorns! Credit: The photo came from Etsy seller My Kids Dream. She basically does the same thing that I did--put your kid's face on the body. (And again, if the seller happens to see this and would like me to remove it, I'd be happy to.)

Anyway, the books turned out super cute and I'm excited to share the whole thing in a tutorial!

Speaking of Riley, my mom took her to a "princess party" at a local recreation center. There were lots of girls dressed as princesses, and being treated as such for an evening :)  (I don't know the names of the Disney princesses, but I'm guessing this is one of them.)

Jerry and I started talking about what the cutest baby animal in the world is. We had no idea! We love kittens, but we haven't exactly looked this up before. After a google search and debate, we settled on THIS baby orangutan 😍

I don't like to celebrate birthdays, as you know, because I hate getting older. So it was only fitting, then, that I got pretty sick for a few days--the worst of it was on my birthday, actually. Jerry made me a "boogie bag" for all of my used tissues (I blew my nose a LOT). I took a few COVID tests and all were negative. Today, I am 100% on the mend. The only residual symptoms are that I'm super exhausted and that I'm still blowing my nose. But no sinus infection, fever, chills, or anything like that. Yay! (Although, this cold set me back on my 10K training for a week.)

Despite the fact that I was sick, I still wanted to choose a birthday dinner. For each of our birthdays, we get to pick our dinner--go out to a restaurant, get take-out, cook something here, whatever we want. And out of alllllll the food in allllll the world, you know what I wanted most?

Vegan Truffle Mac & Cheese with shredded BBQ soy curls on top. BAHAHAHA! Who the heck did I turn into? On Monday, I will have been vegan for one year. Can you believe it? I never, ever would have imagined being vegan one day. And ohmygosh, I love this food. 

Renee wished me happy birthday on Facebook and she included this picture. I'd never seen it before! I don't remember that shirt at all; but from the photo, I'm thinking it was our first day of our first practice of our first season coaching cross country. That was when we had practices at the elementary school and we included second graders!

I saw this cat bed on Amazon or something and I immediately thought about how easy it would be to make. I could probably whip this up in under two hours. And I have the perfect fabric for it, too...

I had a suede/faux fur coat that was too big on me. (Side note: Even though I have some suede and leather things--obviously not vegan--I don't feel like it's right to just get rid of them for the sole purpose of them not being vegan. I feel like that would be even more wasteful/disrespectful. I feel like keeping and caring for the animal products I already have is more respectful to the animals than just getting rid of them. So, if you see me wearing leather or suede, it's NOT new--it's something I've already owned.)

Anyway, I didn't want to just get rid of this suede coat (that I bought at Goodwill) because it's super soft and I knew the cats would like it. I disassembled the coat and then over the past few days, I cut the pieces into shapes that I could tetris together. Now, I can use that fabric for a couple of hammocks, like above, or another sort of cat bed. And then get rid of the gross beds!

These are all of the disassembled pieces of the coat. I'm too lazy to go find the blanket I stitched them into.

I'll start working on the hammock when my energy comes back (this virus or whatever sort of head cold it was has wiped me out).

I got a very generous and special gift in the mail from an old reader (who I like to consider a friend, although we've never met in person) named Cathy. She is SUPER crafty and she made me a "Crazy Cat Lady" tumbler with black cats on it! And there is a pen to match. I opened the package this morning and immediately used both items while making a grocery list.

Here they are up close:

Cathy was worried I'd be offended by the word "crazy"--while some people with mental illness may find it offensive, I do not AT ALL. So please, call me crazy all you want! :)  I actually like the term, because it describes me pretty well, hahaha.

Cathy did NOT ask me to share these gifts or link to her Etsy store, but I want to do that--she has been incredibly kind and generous for probably 10 years now(!). You could not find a better seller than Cathy. (She has given me a couple of things before and the quality is top-notch!) You can find her Etsy store here: Eleventh Avenue Crafts. 

Jerry and I laughed at the cats on the tumbler because the one at the very top looks JUST like Duck and the one sitting in the plant looking upward looks exactly like Chick. 

Finally, this is the project I've chosen to work on in February. I think I'm going to stash my latch hook aside for another time because I'm just not enjoying it! I bought the pattern for this Shameless Mitts a long time ago but I never got around to making them. With arthritis in my hands, the cold really irritates it; wearing fingerless mitts always helps! I have some fabric ones that I made a couple of years ago, but I really like these ones. And I miss Shameless! ;)

Jerry is apparently sick with whatever virus I had, so we plan on having a low-key weekend again. I can't say that I'm complaining--it's been fun to not have to be anywhere.

Have a great weekened! xo

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Three Things Thursday: Embarrassingly Late Lessons

I was up late one night recently, unable to sleep of course, and I somehow came across a thread on Reddit that then sucked me in for literally about two hours! It was such a fun read and it made me think of a few things of my own.

The thread was a question: What is something that you learned embarrassingly late in life?

I thought of one immediately (which I'll list) but then I started thinking of others. And one of them I actually learned while I was reading the thread! Hahaha. So here it goes...

Three Things Thursday: Three Things I Learned Embarrassingly Late In Life

1) "This little piggy went to market" did NOT, in fact, mean that he was going grocery shopping.

He was going to the market to be sold for meat! I only learned this within the last five years or so, which means I spent 35+ years thinking that the little children's rhyme was cute and happy. (Now, as an ethical vegan, it's a bit traumatizing--ignorance is bliss sometimes, for sure!

Look how misleading! I mean, a fox and a rabbit shopping together? C'mon! ;)

2) The movie Spaceballs is a parody of Star Wars.

It's no secret that Jerry is obsessed with Star Wars. And I don't use the word "obsessed" lightly. I have never had any interest in the series and I only watched the movie for the first time about two years ago for Jerry's birthday (I strongly disliked it and still have no interest in it). I even dressed like Princess Leia for the occasion--luckily, Jerry knows what a cool wife he has, haha)

However, when I was a kid, I *loved* the movie Spaceballs! My older brother and sister would watch it, too, and I can remember when their friends came over Jeanie and Brian used me like a party trick--they would ask me to quote things from Spaceballs and I knew every goddamn line of that movie, hahaha. 

They especially liked when I quoted the "We're looking at now, sir. Everything that's happening now is happening now." (See the short scene below.) Their friends thought it was hilarious--I must have been pretty young for them to find it funny that I knew the lines!

It never registered to me that Spaceballs was a parody of Star Wars because I'd never seen the movie Star Wars--or even questioned anything about it! I was just never interested in it. When it finally clicked a couple of years ago, I couldn't believe it. I think it was the Dark Helmet/Darth Vader thing that made the connection for me. Then I started asking Jerry a million questions about how each thing from Spaceballs was connected to Star Wars.

3) Chicken eggs are fertilized from chickens mating.

I always--until last week, when I read this on the Reddit thread!--thought that chicken and bird eggs were fertilized AFTER the egg was laid. I guess I assumed the rooster came along and deposited sperm or something on it? I never really gave it any real thought!

The longest I'd ever really been around chickens was for an hour or two, and even then, there probably wasn't even a rooster around; I'd never witnessed anything that I thought was mating. I have no idea why I thought that the eggs were fertilized afterward, but thinking about it now, it definitely makes more sense!

This picture below isn't at all related to mating chickens, but I thought it was funny. We were dying Easter eggs when Eli was 15 months old, and the reason Eli is crying so hard in this photo has nothing to do with the eggs--but the fact that I wouldn't let him drink the glass of egg dye, hahaha.

Now that I've read the Reddit thread, I know that I'm not the only one to learn things like this embarrassingly late in life... but please share any of your own! I'd love to read them ;) 

(Here is a link to the Reddit thread if you want to read some really great ones. I'll share below a couple of ones that made me laugh way too hard.)

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