I have to hand it to Matt…he is staying very active this year. He finished up basketball this week and began wrestling fulltime. He was already pulling double duty (hitting both practices) whenever he could – maintaining a cycle that constantly sees him involved in some sort of sport: track to baseball to football to basketball to wrestling! As I write this, I see that yet another week has flown by. It was a cold one, as we hovered around the teens or so most of the week, with a brief tease on Thursday & Friday, rising 30 degrees…before resuming the deep freeze this weekend. Matt and I sure missed football this week…but Purdue basketball is slowly filling the void, as they’ve now won three straight in the Big Ten.
Matt played his makeup game with Columbus’ St. Bartholomew on Tuesday. It was not pretty. Matt did get the start and had his finest offensive game of the year. He was 3 for 4 from the field, including 2 for 3 inside the arc and 0 for 1 from downtown…as he heaved up a desperation shot at the end of the 1st quarter! J Ann & I only had to travel a half mile to get to the game from work. MaryAnn watched the kids, meaning Ann got to finally see Matt score!! J He also had 4 rebounds, 2 turnovers, a “stuff??? and a steal. Matt played about 20 of the 24 minutes of the game. Unfortunately, the Pirates were demolished through the first three quarters by the Irish when their coach mercilessly called off the hounds and put in the scrubs. To their credit, the Pirates finally showed life in the final quarter and scored twenty points! Unfortunately, they still lost by 18. L
On Thursday, Matt and his team wrapped up their season at home against Connersville. The Pirates continued with the momentum they had gained during the previous game and lead for most of the game. Matt played about 14 minutes of the game, going 0-1 from the floor, with 2 boards, 2 assists, a steal and a block. The Pirates hit a couple free throws late in the game to give them the lead with 4 seconds left. The Spartans ran the ball up the court and had an open shot from the wing that went in…and then back up and out as the buzzer sounded and Greensburg held on to pull their record up to 3-6 for the year. The kids were so excited as they ran off the court!
On Friday, Abby had her friend (and Mallory’s sister) Megan over to spend the night. We had family night with all the kids, as we ordered pizzas from Noble Roman’s and played playing Sorry and Dance, Dance Revolution. On Saturday, I went in and picked up an extra shift at work and Ann took Lola to Happy Tails dog groomer in New Point. She got a shampoo and a cut, along with a much-needed nail cutting. Megan stayed with us until late Saturday afternoon and then Abby went to stay at her house. She finally came home in the afternoon on Sunday.
I have continued to enjoy re-connecting with old friends this week on Facebook, trading stories and posting old pictures that allows for plenty of comments. I also completed our taxes today. It only took me about 2 hours! My; how times have changed…I can remember using a pencil, paper and a calculator to do them by hand in the past. It would take at least one long day and usually multiple days – only to then wait 6 to 8 weeks to get a check back in the mail. The cool thing was that it didn’t cost anything to do them yourself. Next came the era of paying $20 for the software and another $20 to file electronically, but the cool thing was you got your tax check back in only a couple weeks… Today we have the best of both worlds, as we did both federal and state taxes online…with no charge! The Turbo Tax website offers the 1040 EZ, 1040 and 1040A on the web at no charge. There was also no charge to e-file this year. The IT-40 was again available this year at no charge online via the Indiana state website as well. Dad always said that you don’t get something for nothing, so I was skeptical about why I wasn’t paying someone my $40 this year…but as far as I can tell there have been no strings attached! I guess we’ll see…
But now let’s go back to a simpler time…and start up the Wayback Machine. I’ve restocked photos from about 5 albums and we’ve got lots of funny ones to get through over the next few months. First up, we’ve got a picture of Ann at her good friend Stacy’s bachelorette party in Connersville in November ’93. There are a few naughty ones that may get posted, but the first few are nice ones only!
Next up is Keith during his freshman year at Cal Tech in ’84. Love the shorts man…
Here is Ann & MaryAnn at Stacy’s wedding on November 28, 1993.
Next is Ann with little Kayla Burdine (our good friends Kevin & Lavonne’s first child) on Sept. 26, 1994.
Next is my cousin Nathan Smith in ’94…I assume his senior picture at Kokomo High.
Here is Uncle Robby in 8th grade. 13 years old…hard to believe he’ll be 30 this fall! This is from the 93/94 school year.
This is our little family just starting out. The little one is obviously Matt. This was taken at our townhouse in Columbus in March of ’96.
Here is Aunt Deanna, circa 1990! Wow!
Love this next batch… These two are from the Christmas party at Granny’s house in ’72. I have a bunch of these pictures that have been previously posted in this forum. I’ve got plenty more and here is only a couple. The first is a classic…Mom & Aunt Mary tying one on and singing carols! The second was is for Aunt Judy…Kathy and David from a more innocent age…
Here is another picture of our trip to the St. Louis Zoo in 1970.
The final one is of my third grade class in the spring of 1978. We had a class luau. I also found one other picture of this event to post later. Mom, you’re gonna like this…I just emailed both of these pictures to my 3rd grade teacher, Miss Brickler! I found a link to her email address off the Oakland website link I posted a couple weeks ago. I’m anxious to hear back from her, as you know she was my favorite teacher all through school and the standard upon which I compared every other teacher. I’ve not had contact with her since 1978, so this could be pretty cool! Ann thinks I’m a geek for just writing that! J LOL!!
Well, that’s it for this week. Looks like we might actually get a little of the white stuff to go with this frigid weather! Thanks as always for reading and I’ll see ya next time…