For Feline Friday, all you have to do is post a picture,
drawing, cartoon, or video of a cat.
This week, we have Theodore in his frog hat.
Theodore is all about food, so I can bribe him to wear hats
as long as I give him treats.
I think he looks adorable in them.
Here’s a video of him enjoying his treat.
For Feline Friday, all you have to do is post a picture,
drawing, cartoon, or video of a cat.
There’s a chair in our living room that the cats have
mostly claimed as their own. It’s comfortable,
and it’s right in front of a window, so it makes sense that they like it.
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| Mortimer |
Since the cats spend so much time in that chair, we decided
to put a window bird feeder in that window.
It definitely keeps them entertained!
 |
| Theodore and Mortimer |
As is the case with most of our bird feeders, the squirrels visit at least as often as the birds do. I think the cats are more interested in the squirrels than the birds.
Enjoy this video of Mortimer watching a squirrel.
For Feline Friday, all you have to do is post a picture, drawing, cartoon, or video of a cat.
Since I mentioned recently that Theodore went to the vet for a cough and was scheduled for a re-check, I wanted to let you know that the
infection is gone and Theodore is back to being in great health.
The vet said his lungs sounded great! They still want us to give him Laxatone a few
times a week to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Theodore was born in the vet’s office, and he grew up
there, so he gets treated like a celebrity whenever he goes back. I think, by the time we left, everyone had
carried him around, snuggled with him, and taken pictures of him.
Theodore loves going to the vet!
I almost didn’t write this Thursday 13 because what we have going on is basically nothing in the grand scheme of everything happening in the world right now. But I didn’t post one last week, and I don’t want to skip another week.
Most of my
Thursday 13s are about whatever is going on in my little corner of the world,
so I decided to go ahead and post. I
just want to preface by saying I know that these are very much first-world
“problems,” and that we’re still pretty fortunate. And I’ll try not to whine too much.
1.
We’ve
known for a while that replacing our water heater is on the horizon. It’s about 13 years old. It’s also in the crawlspace, and we’re fairly
certain all of the flooding didn’t do anything good for it. So, while it was frustrating and unpleasant
that the water heater finally gave out for good on Monday morning (why does
everything happen Monday morning?!?), it wasn’t at all surprising.
2.
Our
current setup is an electric water heater and natural gas heat. We’ve wanted to change to a natural gas water
heater for a while now, but it’s a fairly complicated process.
3.
The
“crawl” part of describing our crawlspace is extremely accurate. It’s short!
The current water heater is a low-boy.
That wasn’t an option for natural gas.
(From what we can tell, the low-boy gas water heaters have gone on and
off the market for years due to fire safety issues.) So, switching to a natural gas water heater
meant moving it out from under the house.
4.
After
meeting with the company, we decided to go with a tankless natural gas water
heater. Unfortunately, the tankless
still has to be in the house due to our climate. They also have to run more gas lines and more
water lines.
5.
The
project started yesterday morning. They
told us ahead of time that we had to move some furniture and empty out one
cabinet.
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| A box of stuff from the cabinet is on the bench in the living room. |
6.
Moving
the furniture and emptying the cabinet already created a lot of mess and
disorder. The cabinet is the biggest one
in the kitchen, and it was full. The
furniture is a big, bulky armoire with lots of things in and on it.
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| Kitchen utensils are on a bookshelf in the living room. |
7.
As
always seems to be the case, existing lines and pipes weren’t up to code or had
other problems, so the project has grown.
8.
The
company emptied out two more kitchen cabinets, a kitchen counter, and the
bathroom cabinets. They also had to
drill a hole in the kitchen wall.
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| Nick ziptied a piece of a cube shelf (the cubes are 13x13 to give you an idea of the size of the hole) to keep the cats from getting into the wall. If you have cats, you understand the concern! |
9.
So
yesterday we came home to a hole in the kitchen wall, the refrigerator in the
middle of the kitchen, the washing machine in the middle of the room, lots of
stuff moved off of shelves, and more things outside of cabinets than in
cabinets.
10. Today is looking a little better. The refrigerator and washing machine are back
where they belong. And I did get to clean
under and behind where the refrigerator goes without us having to move it. Tiny silver lining. Everything else is still in total
disarray. And we still have the hole in
the wall.
11. The company assures us that they’re still
on track to finish up by tomorrow afternoon.
It will be so nice to have hot water again! In the meantime, we both have access to
showers at work. Another thing that I
know we’re very fortunate to have. Yes,
it’s inconvenient to pack up everything to shower at work, but it’s also
extremely nice to have that available.
12. Our plans for the weekend are to put
everything away, get the house back in order, probably some fairly major reorganization
due to the space we lost by moving the water heater inside, and work on
figuring out how to fix the hole in the kitchen wall. And, hopefully, to revel in the pleasure of
having a nearly endless supply of hot water.
With any luck, soon I’ll be posting about some of the reorganization.
13. Since it seems like most Thursday 13s
involve at least one cat picture (and to keep this from turning into a total
whine-fest), enjoy the latest picture of Theodore. I think he looks very majestic!
This week’s Thursday 13 finds me much happier about the weather.
1. We’ve
had a few warm days that have been absolutely wonderful. I know it’s probably not going to last, but I
am determined to enjoy the warmer days for now.
2. One of
our hyacinths has even bloomed!
3. Some
of the others have green shoots.
4. Some
of the daffodils have been sprouting too.
5. These
are in the front yard.
6. These
are next to the carport.
7. I
decided to try the milk jug greenhouse thing I’ve seen on Facebook. If you’re not familiar, the idea is that you
clean a milk jug (or similar container), put some drain holes in the bottom,
slice it almost in half so you can access the inside, and plant seeds in
it. The idea is that the plastic jug
serves as a greenhouse and keeps the seedlings warm enough to be outside and
get an early start. It’s also supposed
to eliminate the need for hardening off seedlings.
8. I’ve
never tried it before, so I’m not sure if it works. It sounds like it could, though, so I decided
to give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I can
just use the potting soil for something else.
The seeds will be the only loss.
I started three of them (two different kinds of snapdragons and one
zinnia) on Saturday. I’ll let you know
what happens.
9. In other
yard-related news, I’m still working on the trimming/pruning I can do during
the cold weather. This is from about a
month ago (before the first snowstorm hit.
10. Here’s
the before.
11. And
here’s the after. I think I made some progress.
12. A Thursday
13 doesn’t seem complete without at least one cat picture, so here’s one of
Caroline.
13. And a
few of Theodore.
Since we’ve had so much snow, and I’ve been staying inside so much (because I HATE snow), I don’t have much for a Thursday 13 this week.
So, it seems like a good time to share a very random
assortment of pictures that I’m fairly sure I haven’t posted here before.
1. Of
course, I’m going to start off with a cat picture. I think Mortimer looks adorable here.
2. This was at a vacation rental that we stayed at in 2023. I think these hand mirrors are antique (or at least vintage). They were displayed on a wall in the bathroom, and I thought it was a great idea. It seemed like a fun way to display a collection without really taking up space.
1. As usual, a cat picture seems like a good way to start this Thursday 13. This is a picture of my sister’s cat, Flitwick, that I took when we were there for Christmas.
2. Speaking
of starting things, we started 2026 off by attending a party our friends Dennis
and James hosted on New Year’s Day. They
have two adorable Great Danes who think they’re lap dogs. This picture is of Magnus.
3. It would be nice if there’s any truth to the idea that what you do on January 1st sets the tone for your year. We had a great time at the party, met a lot of nice people, spent time with adorable and sweet pets, and enjoyed some delicious food. Continuing that theme would make it a good year!
4. Another
fun start to the year was doing an escape room for the first time. We went with our friends Jen and Chuck. The one we did was Clue themed (we had to
figure out who, in what room, and what the weapon was, and we had an hour to do
it).
5. It was the first time Nick and I did an escape room, and it was so much fun. I definitely want to do one again!
6. I’ve set my reading goals for the year on The Storygraph.
7. My
2026 reading goal is 52 books, which is basically a book per week. It seems reasonable. I didn’t quite make it last year, but I think
I would have if I hadn’t worked so much overtime in December.
8. I’m technically one book behind already, but I’m very close to finishing a book and an audiobook, so I’m fairly sure I’ll catch up over the weekend.
9. Of
those 52 books, I’ve set the goal for 26 of them to be audiobooks. We have a backlog of purchased audiobooks we
haven’t listened to yet, and there are so many available through the Libby
app. Since I have so many available and
can listen to them while I do other things (I listened to an audiobook while I worked in the yard on Monday), it seems crazy not to make use of them.
10. I’ve also
set the goal for 12 of the 52 books to be non-fiction. I mostly read fiction, and I don’t think that
will ever change, but I would like to branch out and read a little more
non-fiction. Twelve a year is basically
one a month, which seems like a good goal.
11. If you’re on The Storygraph and want to be friends, my super-creative username is dlzecher.
12. We downloaded camera pictures right before we left for my sister’s for Christmas, and I came across this one of Caroline that I like. I think it shows off how pretty her face is.
13. One more
cat picture seems like a great way to end this.
Theodore has started tucking himself into bed sometimes, and it’s
absolutely adorable.
Since I haven’t blogged in almost three months, I thought a Thursday 13 would be a good way to start back and catch up.
1. Since cat pictures are always a good way to start, enjoy this one of Caroline. The bed she’s in clamps to the side of my desk, so she has a comfy place to “supervise” me on my work-from-home days.
2. Caroline has had a lot of work to supervise during my blogging break. I got assigned to help another team with a project that had a very tight deadline, so I was putting in some extra hours. We made it, though, and (fingers crossed) it should be January before I’m dealing with any more super-tight deadlines.
3. Charlie does not involve himself in my work.
4. Nick and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary in September. It doesn’t seem like it has been that long!
5. Theodore turned one at the end of August.
6. It’s beginning to look and feel like Fall is really here. We’ve had highs in the low 70s and lows in the mid-40s.
7. I’ve switched to my Fall cards for my buddies with Chemo Angels and Senior Angels.
8. I’ve been crocheting again.
9. I found this tutorial and liked the way it looked, so I made one (with no plan for giving it to any particular person). I enjoyed making it, and I love the texture the stitches create. (Note: I used an H hook and a shorter starting chain for a narrower scarf.)
10. During
the decluttering/organizing that we did during the spring and summer, I
realized that I have A LOT of yarn I had forgotten about. I came across this green, which is our
neighbor’s (Lori) favorite color. I
asked Lori if she’d like a scarf in that color, and she said yes.
11. When I dropped off Lori’s scarf, I asked if anyone else would like a scarf. Fortunately, a few people said yes. I’m almost finished with a pink scarf for one of the girls. Next up is a light blue one for one of the girls, and a dark blue one for one of the boys. One of the other boys really liked the original gray one, so I gave that one to him.
12. We got the cats an ice cream truck (remember how much they loved the taco truck), which they enjoyed.
13. I’m
working on catching up with visiting everyone’s blogs and hope to “see” you
soon.
