Thank you for all the advice, comments, and sharing your own stories on my last post about Eli’s wisdom teeth surgery. We’re still in shock about the whole thing, and although it seems to be more common than I thought, I hate that this is happening to him. He wants to see a therapist (he is very traumatized) and he has an appointment today. Other than that, his mouth is thankfully recovering well from the surgery.
It’s been almost a month since my last photo/review post. The photos are a bit all over the place as far as what I’ve been doing, but here they are…
My mom and I went to Brian’s house to help build his Christmas tree, and he (as usual) was 3D printing some stuff. He made a lot of really cool stuff that really impressed me – they were giant LEGO people! (Side note: I know LEGO should be capitalized, so “Legos” is incorrect – the plural form of LEGO is LEGO, and it’s capitalized – but I just can’t agree with saying “LEGO bricks” (that’s what the LEGO brand is about) ) says the correct terminology and capitalization. I grew up speaking Legos and I happily continue to do so.)
These were some of the things on his mantelpiece, too. I love all things Super Mario Bros. and these mushrooms he made are adorable:
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| LEGO Little Guys are there for size reference. |
I didn’t notice this until just now, but I was looking for it the longest yesterday! When I was at Brian’s house, I picked up all the old Legos in Brian’s basement and brought them home. Becky and the kids have sorted most of them by color and I want to put them back into the kit to build again. All the instructions are still there; I just need to go through and put all the parts into each kit.
One of the ones I built yesterday was a rather large Star Wars kit, but for the life of me I can’t find the specific LEGO figures to go with it. Now, zooming in on Brian’s big LEGO piece, I can see that the smaller LEGO piece he has there for size reference comes with the kit, haha.
I’ve been really into organizing lately. Typically this happens in late winter and early spring, when debris has built up. I have a lot of handmade items and I’ve been trying to compress them into fewer containers to make them easier to store. Look at these sewing supplies in my living room! I took everything out and organized/compressed it.
Which leads me to some shocking news from Noah…he’s moving out. He and his girlfriend are sharing an apartment and plan to move in Friday. Jerry and I were stunned because he didn’t mention this at all; he said he was worried about telling us. He’s only about 15-20 minutes away, so at least he’s not across country or anything!
I really wish he would have waited, but he is 19 and he really wants to be independent. He’s very responsible, so I’m not worried about that aspect, but I think it would be wiser to stay here until he finishes school. He can save money (we don’t charge him rent or anything like that) and in a few years, he’ll be able to save enough for a down payment on a house.
However, I understand that he wants to go out on his own since he doesn’t take the dorm/college route. I moved into a dormitory when I was 18 and loved being on my own (well, with roommates). Regardless, I’ve accepted it and I’m glad he did all the research to make sure he could afford it. He listed all of his living expenses – even going to the grocery store and listing the prices of all the food he liked to buy!
I only mention all this here so that when Noah moves out I can put my artifacts in his room. In the spring I think I will build some shelves and a long table for my sewing supplies – it will be nice so I don’t have to drag everything out and put it away every time I use it. But I told Noah he was welcome to come back anytime and claim his room. Already thinking about remodeling his bedroom, something feels wrong, hahaha.
If you don’t do New York Times Connect puzzles, then this won’t mean anything to you. But one day I got really angry when I realized it made a mistake and I wasted a lot of time working on it. My puzzle lists “GARTH” as a word and I spent too much time trying to figure out the last two categories. I was thinking out loud and Jerry said, “Did you ever say gath was one of your words?” I said yes, and he showed me his puzzle – it wasn’t gath listed, but It’s Hobbes.
When I finally figured out the categories and tried it (with Garth), it said I made a mistake. The GARTH square in my result is not blue (just like the HOBBES result is Jerry), my result is black! This has never happened to me before. Anyway, this is weird.
Jenny sent me this photo and asked if she could commission me to make these horse heads for a girls weekend. This is an annual event and they do a theme every year. Next year’s theme is the Kentucky Derby and she thought these would be a fun prop. I’ve sewn the head and am now working on the hair, which takes a long time. But it’s a good project!
I mentioned before that Duck is obsessed with pasta, so much so that he runs into the kitchen when he sees me take out the colander to drain the pasta. If I don’t watch him carefully, he’ll jump up on the counter and try to get the noodles from the colander in the sink. One day, I made a bowl of spicy peanut noodles, and the duck kept trying to grab Jerry’s while he was eating.
Here is my very delicious (vegan) Thanksgiving dinner. We went to my parents’ house, but I made Jerry’s and my food at home and took it there to eat with everyone else. (What looks like a muffin top above is actually just the end pieces of a seitan roast I make. I *love* the end pieces because of all the seasoning on the outside.) I thought about making a vegan version of sweet potato casserole, But it contains too much sugar and fat, so I opted to use regular (mashed) sweet potatoes instead. look? I’m really making better choices! 😉
We took Joey to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. He loves going there because he gets a lot of attention from my mom. His face is so funny in this photo!
I didn’t start a Spanish course on Duolingo until May or June, but I got a “year in review” in my email and I was so surprised at how much time I spent on the Spanish course! A total of 2188 minutes, which is 36-1/2 hours (I take at least one class every day). In fact, I’m really impressed with the Duolingo app; I use the free version and learn a lot.
I saw someone shared a “Couples Challenge” on Pinterest and thought it would be a really fun thing for my family to do for Christmas. The original couples challenge said to pick any store, but that would probably be very expensive, so I specified that we shop at the dollar store. Jerry, Noah, Eli and I were going to do this for each other and I thought shopping at the dollar store would make it even more fun – we had to get creative. And of course a sense of humor! Basically, we would buy each of the eight items for each other. It will be fun to see what everyone picks!
My nephew Hunter and my niece Shelby – aren’t they adorable? ! Their hair is golden. The funny thing is that my niece and nephew both have the blondest hair. I love Shelby’s smile.
Here’s Shelby’s school photo – she couldn’t be cuter!
Well, I’m going to put more effort into organizing the Legos. Now that I have sorted all the colors into different bins, hopefully it will disappear soon. I’d love to know how many kits I can put back together; there are about 15 different instructions.