It’s been a tough week as the first full week of autumn brought us much cooler temperatures. The farmers are harvesting their fields, changing our landscape again. The leaves on the trees are turning colors and beginning to litter the lawns. In fact, it got so cold this week that we actually had to close up the house just to keep warm. Matt had a long week of working two jobs. He is excited to be starting wrestling season very soon! Abby was concerned about the COVID as several students tested positive this week. In fact, the school will be moving to a virtual schedule next week. We’re not sure if Abs will come home or stay up at campus at this point. Luke did well in school and thinks he made the honor roll as they wrapped-up the first nine weeks and will be begin Fall Break next week. Ann had a good week at work but struggled with back pain to the point where she had to go back to taking some anti-inflammatories. She had been off of them for a couple months. We’re wondering if it is related to our mattress. We flipped it a couple weeks ago and were hoping that would give her some relief but it hasn’t to this point. I spent the week working on our computer systems at work as we continue the recovery effort after last weekend’s cyber-attack. We made a lot of progress and I expect that we may have nearly everyone up and running by this time next week. It has been a huge undertaking and we learned a lot. The big news of the week, however, was that of the passing of our beloved Uncle John. He and Aunt June had a big impact on my development as a young child. We spent a lot of time with them and their first two kids, Barney & Kimmy – to the point where we joked that they were my brother and sister instead of cousins. John was a star football player in Lafayette and stayed in the area after graduating college. He gave back to the community and was a wonderful role model. My favorite Bloody Mary is still his version of the cocktail. I will miss him making those at our Christmas parties, for sure. He was always so kind to me, growing up. Even though my folks got divorced and we moved to California, he always made me feel welcomed whenever we would get together through the years. It was a hard pill to swallow on its own merit but even more so as it comes on the heels of Uncle Chuck’s passing, just a few months ago. Yes, this year has been a tough one…and this week emulated it in a nutshell.
It was back to work and school on Monday morning. It finally rained that day, after going a few weeks without any precipitation. I was in meetings pretty much all day, as we worked through our security issues, corporate-wide and locally at our facility. When I wasn’t in a meeting, I was trying to do my monthly EOC rounds. At times, I did both. The day went super-fast and before I knew it, I was headed out to walk. It allowed me to not only exercise for my health but it allowed me to collect my thoughts and have a little peace for a while. I was just thankful that it had stopped raining. It was a pretty evening. I could’ve played some frisbee golf but decided to rest my elbow and, frankly, rest my body because tomorrow is going to be a very long day. Luke had a good day at school and a wet afternoon at football practice. He said it was very muddy. He went out with Kam that night for a while then came back and filled out an application for Hibbett’s. I grabbed some leftover pizza while Ann had popcorn and we watched an episode of Outlander before calling it an early night. Here are pictures from Luke’s football game last week vs. Bluffton.
I was up way too early on Tuesday morning to head into work and begin my annual 12° generator test. It was a cold morning in the upper 30s and very dark…thankfully there was a full moon in the southeasterly sky to light my way. I also knocked out my 3rd shift fire drill, annual burndown in the gym and my annual fire door inspection that day. On top of all that, I began reimaging computers, knocking out mine and my boss’ laptops. I hated to wipe mine because it takes me months to get my PC setup the way I like it with all of my modifications, shortcuts and administrative tools. It was a busy day that saw me get well over my step goal even though I didn’t exercise that evening. Luke had an appointment in Columbus, so he brought Ann over later that morning and then went on to school afterwards. He had a good football practice that evening then went out to ElRep with his teammates. Ann sold some of his clothes on Facebook that didn’t fit and gave the money to him that evening. I was able to get everything done at work and left at pretty much our usual time. I considered going to the park when we got back to town but I was hungry, sore (feet and back) and tired so we came on home and I grabbed some leftovers and flopped on the couch. Besides, it was still pretty wet outside from the rain earlier that afternoon. By the time we watched just one episode of Outlander, I was ready for bed. Delilah chewed through her collar that day and so we fitted her with the new training collar and although we didn’t have to shock her, we did beep her a couple times. I wound up watching the debate from bed and was bored – it was useless to try and watch it as they accomplished nothing except talking over each other, spouting the same old rhetoric. So, I rolled over and went on to sleep. I don’t really like either candidate…is there a 3rd?? Here are random pictures from our recent adventures.
It was another beautiful commute into work on Wednesday with a glorious sunrise that painted the sky in several colors that morning. It was another cool start in the lower 40s. I spent the day finishing up the monthly EOC stuff in the morning, along with a couple meetings about the IT systems. I collected all the computers in the facility and took them up to the penthouse, where I’ll have to wipe and reimage them all before they can go back on the network when it returns. The corporate folks have really been amazing with how much progress they’ve already made in such a short span of time. I told my folks that locally, we probably won’t be normal again for at least two weeks. Being a small, RTC; we are at the bottom of the food chain but we have good offline systems in place to keep things afloat while we restore our destroyed infrastructure. The day was broken up nicely by going out to lunch with Justin, Vic and our other Justin work friend. The Sirloin Stockade was now able to let us get our own food, so we were pleased about that. I walked a little over two and a half miles after getting out of work a little late. It was a perfect afternoon in the lower 70s and a nice breeze. By the time we got home, it was nearly dark and the wind had picked up. In lieu of frisbee golf, I started the grill and we cooked tuna steaks on the patio while we had a cold beer and chatted. Ann made some cheesy pasta out of the leftovers from the chili last weekend and some cheesy broccoli rounded out a yummy dinner. She made this white sauce that when paired with a squirt of lemon, made the fish just right! I believe Ann called it a good food palette or something. LOL. Luke bought us tickets at school for the Batesville game this week, since they will not sell any at the gate and are still limiting the amount of spectators even though the state of Indiana has now moved onto stage 5, which means there are no restrictions on gathering. Still, I realize it’s a school so we’ll do whatever needs to be done – just as long as there’s still football! ???? Luke didn’t come home after school and practice. Instead, he again went out with his teammates to ElRep for dinner – despite Ann cooking one hell of a meal. He truly missed out… We finished watching the final few episodes of Outlander before calling it a night. Now we have to wait until next year to watch the next season! ? The new season of South Park debuted that evening, but Ann wouldn’t let me watch it. It comes on the heals of the premiers of both The Simpsons and Family Guy this past weekend – both of which we still have yet to watch yet… Here are pictures of recent additions to my Hot Wheels collection.
It was another cold start to the morning, right at 40 degrees. I told Ann that at this rate, I’ll need to start warming the car up in the mornings! I’m not ready for that quite yet. We still have a few windows open, but we did have to close a couple. It was another day of working to restore our IT systems. I again made some progress but it is slow, tedious work. I finally made a breakthrough, though, and so it should go much faster now. It was a long day and I didn’t even get a chance to walk. It didn’t matter because it apparently rained anyhow. It continued raining on our way home and it was much cooler when we got back to Greensburg. I’m pretty lucky because most wives wouldn’t have gotten out in the rain and strong winds to get stuff to make for her husband – she must really love me!? I was hoping to play at least one round of frisbee golf but it was too wet to go out to the park. Ann made another batch of her jalapeno popper dip for me to take out to the Bewley B&B Bar for poker night with the boys. We had a good turnout with the only regular missing being Pat. But we had a new Pat there that night – Mark. Unfortunately, Rick got called away to handle a family emergency with Ms. Lynn. We tried to have fun without him, but it obviously put a damper on the evening. Mark turned out to be a big winner, as did Shawn (who went home with my $ on a darn hand of Bryan’s In-Between (I hate that game). I think I lost $11 on that hand alone! I got caught up a little by the end of the night and I think I wound up down $3 for the night. I touched base with Paul that night and he is going to come watch Luke play tomorrow night if we can get him into the event. Apparently, they are limiting the number of spectators at the game by selling two different tickets and if you buy one type, you cannot sit on the other side and the Drakes want to sit with us…
We slept in a little on Friday morning. Luke’s day starts a little later because his teachers have CEU training hours to do each week. I worked from home so I got up and took Ann to work, here in town and came back to continue reimaging computers. I knocked out a dozen of them as I staged them at my desk in the family room. I picked up Ann as I was on a tech support call for one of my users at the facility. We eventually worked through it, but we started at the house then put on my headphones and continued as I drove to pickup Annie and didn’t finish until we were sitting down and had ordered lunch at ElRep. ???? I could get used to working at home more often… After lunch, I jumped on another conference call while Ann took a nap. Luke came home for a few minutes between school and catching the bus for the game tonight in Batesville. He was able to buy us 4 tickets for the Drakes, so we made plans to meet up with them in the parking lot before the game started. We dressed in layers that night. I even wore jeans and boots as it was supposed to be pretty chilly that night. In fact, we took blankets and dressed in layers to prepare – this isn’t our first rodeo, ya know! LOL! As it turned out, it didn’t get quite as cold as we thought it would. The Drakes and the boys sat with us on the visitors’ side. The Pirates came out strong, going up by a couple scores at halftime. As usual, the boys got tired towards the end of the 3rd quarter and limped through the first half of the 4th quarter. With only 8 minutes left to play, the game was tied at 28 when they finally pulled away to win 42-28. There were some good things to build on for next week’s game, but there’s also some things to work on in practice this next week as well. Luke started at middle linebacker on defense as well as left guard on the offense. He also played special teams so there wasn’t much time to rest. He did not cramp, which was a great sign. The offensive line was all over him – double-teaming him regularly. He still made some plays and with all the attention being paid him, it allowed his teammates to step up, which they did. I talked to him after the game and told him that he would now have to adjust to what the offenses are doing to contain him. His stats for the game: 9 total tackles with 6 solo & 3 assists, 1 QB hurry and a big, forced fumble! Afterwards, we met up with Luke and talked for a few minutes before we went down the street to Pizza King with the Drakes while Luke rode back with the team on the bus. We ate and laughed as we caught up with each other’s lives for a while then had to say our goodbyes and head on home. It was a little awkward since we got there just before closing time, but they allowed us to come in. Some of the girls in the back I didn’t last long at all. I finished up another computer and then went on to bed. We have lots of social media pictures to share this week.
After going to bed early last night, I couldn’t sleep very late and enjoyed a little quiet porch time with the dogs. Ann came out a little while later and told me the bad news – she had just read that Uncle John passed away. The last I heard, he was doing better and that the treatments were working. So, I called Dad & Barb and confirmed the awful news. John had died on Thursday. I was obviously sad, but I felt even worse for Dad who has now lost two brothers in 2020. Gawd, this year sucks… We got cleaned-up and drove over to St. Paul to pickup goodies at Wildflour then stopped by to visit with Mom & Sandy. Gigi was still at work but we enjoyed spending time with Gma for an hour or so. When we came home, I finished reimaging the last work PC while I enjoyed my ham & cheese pastries. Luke slept in then got dressed for a job interview at Hibbett’s (the local sporting goods store). He came home and took a long nap all afternoon. That evening, he went out with Brayden and then the boys wound up back at our house, and Brayden spent the night. I checked fluids in the vehicles then sat in on a couple hours of conference calls for work. Those guys at the corporate office are working their butts off, that’s for sure. I talked to Dad B, who is doing great with his recovery from back surgery. When I talked with him, he was actually out walking and was next door. He said he was doing about a mile a day now! That afternoon, I finally had some time work on the blog as I finished editing pictures and began writing out the html code while I was putting together the game tape from Luke’s game last night so I could do stats and enjoy the highlights again. We started a couple new series. The first was Dexter, which was one the kids said we would enjoy. The other was a show on FX, called A Wilderness of Error. Ann made Fireworks popcorn for dinner as we turned on the second one and watched a few episodes of it.
Lola had us up earlier than we wanted on Sunday morning when she was barking at a cat, we think. We got dressed and made our weekly trek to Walmart. After putting away our stock, Ann made biscuits and gravy for breakfast. We did our weekly household chores. While Ann napped, I watched the NASCAR races from Talladega before the NFL games started. I watched RedZone all afternoon and hung out with the dogs while the boys went with Brayden’s family to go swimming. It rained here and got colder and colder as the day went on. I did not get on any conference calls, taking a break for my own mental health before I gear up for next week’s craziness at work. Ann made fish tacos for dinner that night that were outstanding. Luke and Brayden drove up to Greenwood that evening and then went down to Franklin and had dinner with Gail & Gary. ???? We watched the Colts / Bears game that evening and then binge-watched a few more episodes of Dexter and looked forward to the return of The Walking Dead that night. I saw where they are have sadly decided to retire this show after the 2021 season. I guess all good things must come to an end… It was a relaxing way to wind down the weekend and mercifully put an end to this long-ass week.
Next up is our Waybac section which continues to feature two collections. The first is the batch we used at Uncle Chuck’s funeral and the other is from Dee’s first digital camera. We lead off with a batch of Uncle Goon pix: 1940s – with Sue, what I think is a school pic at St. Mary’s and then with Sue and Granny on 9th St.; 1950s – with all the siblings sans Mary; 1960s – playing cards with his buddies; 1970s –not a Chuck pic but a great one of Granny and all her granddaughters; 1980s – the three amigos; and 2000s – with Cindy and Sally; then we move onto 2003: July – 4th of July fun and Gigi’s birthday and Nov – Thanxmas at our house; and finally Uncle Goon in the 2010s – a good one with Cathy, Vicky and fam, solo and with Cathy & Cindy on vacation.
Next up is our video section which features two new home movies this week as well as several from around the internet.
And that does it for this week’s entry into the Scheu Family Blog. Thanks for keeping up with us this week and we’ll catch up with you again next time. Until then, have a good one and stay safe out there. We miss ya, Mom.
Later, Scheu