A bunch of comparisons from the 4th

I decided that I'm going to continue taking pictures of my hair every month on the 4th, but I'm not going to do another big comparison collage until I hit 18 months.   Those comparisons take a long time!

These are the 13 month pictures from July 4th. 

We also took the kid's annual Flag Suit pictures that day.  These pictures are actually the only ones I do that don't have a specific date.  I just take them around the 4th of July.  

Spencer's 2008-2020 collage 

Elliott's 2012-2020 collage 

And finally......We had a big 4th of July party in 2018.  I took a selfie by the pool.  It showed up in my memories in 2019.  In July 2019 I had been through a double mastectomy, four more surgeries after that, and 16 weeks of chemo.  I was flat on the left and had an implant on the right. I had surgery on July 1st to remove my chemo port so I had bruising and stitches and surgical glue on my chest.  I thought about doing a comparison, but I knew it would be terribly depressing and would just upset me even more.  I vowed to be healthy enough to do one in 2020. 

Here's the original in 2018.

And the comparison from 2020.  

And the side by side 

Up next: the actual events from 4th of July.

Pre-4th

Last week, the week before the 4th of July, was fairly mundane. 

Spencer, who has rallied against mint since he was a toddler, randomly decided to eat a bowl of mint cookie ice cream on Tuesday the 30th.  

Elliott was not amused.  

July 1st was the one year anniversary of when I had my chemo port removed.  OF COURSE I did comparison pictures. 

I did some planting that week and took pictures of my work on the 2nd.  There was actually a faint rainbow without any rain when I went outside.  

Lavender and rosemary 

A bougainvillea bush 

I had gone to the dermatologist that day to get the stitches removed from one of four skin biopsies I had done the week before.  I asked them to look at my toe (that did not have stitches in it) because it didn't look great.  Yep.  It was infected. 

On Thursday evening I did my capillus cap,

while soaking my infected toe,  

while watching scrubs.  

I took pictures of all of the 4th of July decor on Friday the 3rd.  There will be an entire post of it, but here is a sneak peak. 

We had a 4th of July themed family happy hour that evening.  It was very festive. 

Up next: all things 4th of July

Work ends, and a project begins

My brother's birthday was Monday, June 22nd.  He is out to sea so there was no celebration, but Michael and I watched Funny Farm in his honor.  Nick and I used to watch Funny Farm at least once a week growing up. 

We loved Yellow Dog.  I took these pictures and sent them to Nick so he could pretend he was watching too. 

Nothing happened on the 23rd.  Like, nothing. 

Someone was asking how to cover the glass on their front door to make it more private, so I took these pictures to show them what we have done.   That's it for Wednesday, June 24th.  

I took this picture on Thursday the 24th to stand as the "before" picture.  I've decided to re-do it.  My grandparents had this chair when my mom was a kid, so it's been in our family a long time.  

Friday the 26th was my last day of providing extended school year services on zoom.  I had to commemorate it. 

A comparison of my first day vs my last day.  This was my 16th year as a speech language pathologist.  

After I was done with work that day I started on the chair.  Just a reminder, this is what it looked like. 

I knew that my mom had sewn the back for it and recovered the seat in the late '60's.  That's all I knew.

Once I made it through the blue fabric, which was no small feat, this is what I found. 

Even older fabric that was even more secure.    

Either this sat out in the direct sun, or this fabric was on there for a long time, because it was very faded.  

Once I got through the green fabric it turned into an action adventure, sci-fi, horror movie.  It is very obvious that this whole seat was homemade and homemade a long time ago.  It was made out of lumber, old-fashioned springs, cotton batting, STRAW (yes, straw), burlap sacks, a changing pad, and kitchen towels.  Oh my god.  

Stay tuned, because after taking the seat apart I need a good six month break before I rebuild it. 

We skipped family zoom happy hour on Friday so that Nick could participate on Saturday.  We had a generic "summer" theme.  Nick did participate, but he was in the middle of the Atlantic and kept getting knocked off.  Michael and I were drinking out of a pineapple. 

After the Saturday happy hour, we baked cookies.